One of the things I find maddening is we have no one in the media who tries to hold our elected officials responsible. We allow them to say what they want, do what they want and just be irresponsible with no cares about the consequences of their statements or actions may have.
Even the so called "Hardball" with Chris Matthews doesn't always get to the meat and potatoes of the matter. Oh he likes to say he holds their feet to the fire, but he doesn't. And, David Gregory, on Meet the Press, well if you are on the R side, you get the puff ball, do you need a pillow interview, while if you are on the D side you might get a little tougher, do you think you were too hard on President Bush and do you regret saying he is the worst president ever. That's what he asked Sen. Reid last week. Not that I watched it, just read about it. I said when NBC named him as host I would never watch it again and I won't.
So, far I haven't seen anyone really force someone to answer the tough questions here in the US. But, I have hopes. Maybe one of these days, some reporter here will take lessons from the guy on this video. He is interviewing 2 of our congressmen. Watch this, it is a little long, but it is worth the watch, especially the last half of it. It is about the War in Gaza, the fact they are using weapons we (the USA) has supplied them, Israel I mean, and Dennis Kucinich, (D,OH) is not happy about that. I am not sure what Eliot Engel, (D,NY) is there for, but he gets grilled. It is worth the watch. He has no good answers and can't even argue well. Oh I wish this reporter worked for one of the MSM here and could have held Bushes feet to the fire.
Showing posts with label war. Show all posts
Showing posts with label war. Show all posts
Thursday, January 8, 2009
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
The Greatest Greatness of George W. Bush
The Greatest Greatness of George W. Bush
by: William Rivers Pitt, t r u t h o u t | Columnist
Take me down little Susie, take me down
I know you think you're the queen of the underground
And you can send me dead flowers every morning
Send me dead flowers by the mail
Send me dead flowers to my wedding
And I won't forget to put roses on your grave ...
- The Rolling Stones
To: George W. Bush
From: Your biggest fan
Re: Your imminent unemployment
Greetings, Mr. Bush.
I was sorry to hear about the passing of your cat, India. Eighteen years is a long time for a cat - my mother has one that's 20 and still going strong, if you can believe it - and I'm sure India had a comfortable, caring life with your family.
I got to spend part of last weekend with an old friend of mine. He's a bit older than 18, and he's also a troop who recently rotated back from a tour in Falluja. He just had a baby daughter, and he will be sent to Afghanistan before too much longer. He did his duty in Iraq, dealt his share of death and saw his friends die or be ripped to shreds right in front of him.
He was hollow in a lot of places that had been full before he went to Iraq. He was not the same man we'd said farewell to. But he was alive, and if he survives his upcoming Afghanistan tour, maybe he will get the chance to have a long, comfortable, caring life with his family, just like little India.
At present, my friend's life is the polar opposite of comfortable, and he still has Kabul waiting for him just over the horizon. His life is the way it is because of you, Mr. Bush. You have been the single greatest influence upon his time in this world; you put him over there and hollowed him out, and because of you, it's about to happen again. You were the single biggest influence upon the lives of every person he knew over there, every person he saw over there, and every person he killed over there.
It's funny. I was thinking the other day about when I marched in one of the first large-scale post-inauguration protests against you in Washington, DC. It was May of 2001, it was The Voter's Rights March to Restore Democracy, and it was a few thousand people shouting down the unutterably ruinous Supreme Court decision which unleashed, just as we then feared, everything that has since come to pass. "Not my president!" we bellowed. "Not my president!"
It's funny because that memory seems so very quaint to me now. A stolen election? Pfff. To paraphrase a different president, Americans get scarier stuff than that free with their breakfast cereal nowadays. Thanks to you, governor.
My All-Time-Grand-Prize-Bull-Goose-Gold-Medal-Winning Top Five list of what you've done, in no particular order, and in my own humble opinion:
1. You were warned by the outgoing administration when you first took office. You were warned by the Russians. You were warned by the Israelis. You were warned by the Germans. You were warned in a memo given to you by your own National Security Adviser. You were warned by men like Richard Clarke. You were warned all those times that Osama bin Laden intended to strike the United States, and still the Towers came down.
(All those people working on that Legacy Project of yours should go back to bed, by the way; they are trying to salvage the unsalvageable. You protected us, they claim? Ha. You're 0-1 on terrorism and 0-2 on war)
2. Less than a month after those Towers came down, a reporter asked what you thought we should do. "We need to counter the shockwave of the evildoer," you replied, "by having individual rate cuts accelerated and by thinking about tax rebates." I happened to be watching television and heard you say that live into a camera. The only reason I didn't throw up on myself is because my teeth were clenched too tightly for the vomit to pass my lips. I swallowed hard, grabbed a pen, and wrote down what you said and when you said it. It was October 4, 2001, just after nine in the morning. You'd like people to remember you standing on that pile of rubble in Manhattan, you with the bullhorn and the heroic pose. I, however, will always remember you pitching tax cuts to a devastated nation while a pall of poison smoke still hung in the air over Ground Zero.
3. A few years later, you wanted hundreds of billions of dollars diverted from other areas of the federal budget and into your war in Iraq. You took more than $70 billion out of the budget used by the Army Corps of Engineers in Louisiana to fund the repair and maintenance of the New Orleans levee system. Katrina struck not long after you took that money and poured it into the sand, and the levees failed for lack of funded upkeep. Through this, along with your disinterested disinclination to help your own countrymen in their hour of darkest need, you played the very last note for that old, sad, lost American city. Reflected in those actions are the same budgetary priorities that motivated you to turn Walter Reed Army Medical Center, the hospital where I was born, into an abattoir of suffering and neglect for the wounded soldiers you tore apart for a lie.
4. You let Dick "Crazy-Eyes" Cheney do whatever the hell he wanted to whomever he wanted whenever and wherever he wanted, and be damned to the damned old Constitution anyway. Cheney once said the vice president's office was not part of the same branch of government as the president's office, and he said it with his bare face hanging out the whole time. Why? He didn't want to give any of his official papers over to the National Archives, as mandated by at least two federal laws. Nope, he said, my office is in Congress today, sorry about that, but be sure to come on back after you drop dead. Or words to that effect. That's about one zillionth of a percent of what he did, because you let him pick himself to be your boss.
5. On July 19, 2006, you vetoed H.R. 810. On June 20, 2007, you vetoed S. 5. Both vetoes killed legislation aimed at funding and vastly enhancing the reach and scope of stem cell research in America. The father of someone I know died of bone marrow cancer just after that first veto; he was adopted, no family could be located, so no donor match for a bone marrow transplant could be found. With stem cell therapy, doctors could have taken his own marrow and grown enough healthy, matching marrow to save his life. Two other people I know have diabetes, like millions of Americans. Stem cell research could offer them a cure. Someone else I know has multiple sclerosis, and stem cell research could very well help her, too. She'd write you a thank-you note for those vetoes, but her right hand doesn't work so well anymore. She's getting better with her left hand, so maybe that note can get written next year.
Also, you defied lawfully issued subpoenas and potentially set a precedent that could shatter the separation of powers. You told the American people Iraq was in possession of 26,000 liters of anthrax, 38,000 liters of botulinum toxin, 500 tons - which is one million pounds - of sarin, mustard and VX nerve agent, 30,000 missiles to deliver the stuff, mobile biological weapons labs, al-Qaeda connections and uranium from Niger for use in a robust nuclear weapons program, even though all of that was a lie. You made a joking video about not being able to find any of it. You outed a deep-cover CIA agent who was running a network designed to keep weapons of mass destruction out of the hands of terrorists, and you did so because her ambassador husband told the truth about you in the public prints.
You gave away our right to privacy by sending the NSA to spy on us. You turned us all into torturers and butchers in the eyes of the world with your decision to use Abu Ghraib prison the same way Saddam Hussein once did. You tried to appoint Henry Kissinger to lead the investigation into 9/11. You turned the entire Justice Department into a carnival of political hackery. You championed the economic policies and deregulation fantasies that have left the financial stability of millions in ashes. You used the threat of terrorism against your own people in order to give yourself political cover. You killed hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people who did you nor us no harm.
You did all this, and so much more.
From a certain perspective, one could argue that you have been the most successful president the country has ever seen. Think about it, because according to your definition of "success," it's true. You came into office looking to make your friends richer, and to fulfill as best you could your most overriding personal belief: that government is the problem, so government must be damaged and denuded to the point of impotence. Through your tax cuts and your two vastly expensive boondoggle wars, you made your friends rich. By unleashing Mr. Cheney and your other minions, you tore the Constitution to shreds and tatters. You have achieved both goals in smashing style, so from that certain perspective, you have triumphed.
Could you also, from the proper perspective, be considered our greatest president?
Perhaps, someday, if we make it so.
It will be in the best interests of many powerful people if we as a nation simply dismiss you and forget you ever happened. A lot of news media people want us to forget you, because in forgetting you, we would forget the media's vast complicity in your actions and misdeeds. A lot of rich people making new fortunes from war profiteering and defense contracts want us to forget they and you even exist, as it would make it possible for them to do it all again someday. A lot of politicians who stapled themselves to you would simply adore it if we forgot about you. The Republican Party would be forever in our debt if we forgot about you.
No. We will not forget you. We will remember.
We the people are going to save you from ignominious oblivion. We will remember. You could be the president who doomed America, the worst president of all time, but we must not, will not let that happen. You will be remembered differently, because we will hold the memory of you high, and behold you, and say, "Never, never, never again." We have tasted the soot and smelled the blood on the wind; we have seen how fragile our way of government is when placed in the hands of low men such as you, and because of that, you will be remembered for all time.
Your greatness will be defined by how we rise to overcome and undo what you have done. Your greatness will stand forever if we never, ever forget the hard, bitter lessons you taught us. We are responsible for this republic, for our Constitution, and for each other. We are our brother's keeper. You taught us that by becoming our Cain. You nearly slew us, but here we stand, and we defy the place in history you would relegate us to. We defy you, and by doing so, we rise.
Something like you must never again be allowed to happen to this country, and if we save ourselves by preventing you from ever happening again, your greatness is assured. You are the tallest of all possible warnings, and a promise all of us must solemnly and stalwartly keep. If we can damn you to the past, we will save our own future.
May you live forever, you son of a bitch.
From Truthout.org
by: William Rivers Pitt, t r u t h o u t | Columnist
Take me down little Susie, take me down
I know you think you're the queen of the underground
And you can send me dead flowers every morning
Send me dead flowers by the mail
Send me dead flowers to my wedding
And I won't forget to put roses on your grave ...
- The Rolling Stones
To: George W. Bush
From: Your biggest fan
Re: Your imminent unemployment
Greetings, Mr. Bush.
I was sorry to hear about the passing of your cat, India. Eighteen years is a long time for a cat - my mother has one that's 20 and still going strong, if you can believe it - and I'm sure India had a comfortable, caring life with your family.
I got to spend part of last weekend with an old friend of mine. He's a bit older than 18, and he's also a troop who recently rotated back from a tour in Falluja. He just had a baby daughter, and he will be sent to Afghanistan before too much longer. He did his duty in Iraq, dealt his share of death and saw his friends die or be ripped to shreds right in front of him.
He was hollow in a lot of places that had been full before he went to Iraq. He was not the same man we'd said farewell to. But he was alive, and if he survives his upcoming Afghanistan tour, maybe he will get the chance to have a long, comfortable, caring life with his family, just like little India.
At present, my friend's life is the polar opposite of comfortable, and he still has Kabul waiting for him just over the horizon. His life is the way it is because of you, Mr. Bush. You have been the single greatest influence upon his time in this world; you put him over there and hollowed him out, and because of you, it's about to happen again. You were the single biggest influence upon the lives of every person he knew over there, every person he saw over there, and every person he killed over there.
It's funny. I was thinking the other day about when I marched in one of the first large-scale post-inauguration protests against you in Washington, DC. It was May of 2001, it was The Voter's Rights March to Restore Democracy, and it was a few thousand people shouting down the unutterably ruinous Supreme Court decision which unleashed, just as we then feared, everything that has since come to pass. "Not my president!" we bellowed. "Not my president!"
It's funny because that memory seems so very quaint to me now. A stolen election? Pfff. To paraphrase a different president, Americans get scarier stuff than that free with their breakfast cereal nowadays. Thanks to you, governor.
My All-Time-Grand-Prize-Bull-Goose-Gold-Medal-Winning Top Five list of what you've done, in no particular order, and in my own humble opinion:
1. You were warned by the outgoing administration when you first took office. You were warned by the Russians. You were warned by the Israelis. You were warned by the Germans. You were warned in a memo given to you by your own National Security Adviser. You were warned by men like Richard Clarke. You were warned all those times that Osama bin Laden intended to strike the United States, and still the Towers came down.
(All those people working on that Legacy Project of yours should go back to bed, by the way; they are trying to salvage the unsalvageable. You protected us, they claim? Ha. You're 0-1 on terrorism and 0-2 on war)
2. Less than a month after those Towers came down, a reporter asked what you thought we should do. "We need to counter the shockwave of the evildoer," you replied, "by having individual rate cuts accelerated and by thinking about tax rebates." I happened to be watching television and heard you say that live into a camera. The only reason I didn't throw up on myself is because my teeth were clenched too tightly for the vomit to pass my lips. I swallowed hard, grabbed a pen, and wrote down what you said and when you said it. It was October 4, 2001, just after nine in the morning. You'd like people to remember you standing on that pile of rubble in Manhattan, you with the bullhorn and the heroic pose. I, however, will always remember you pitching tax cuts to a devastated nation while a pall of poison smoke still hung in the air over Ground Zero.
3. A few years later, you wanted hundreds of billions of dollars diverted from other areas of the federal budget and into your war in Iraq. You took more than $70 billion out of the budget used by the Army Corps of Engineers in Louisiana to fund the repair and maintenance of the New Orleans levee system. Katrina struck not long after you took that money and poured it into the sand, and the levees failed for lack of funded upkeep. Through this, along with your disinterested disinclination to help your own countrymen in their hour of darkest need, you played the very last note for that old, sad, lost American city. Reflected in those actions are the same budgetary priorities that motivated you to turn Walter Reed Army Medical Center, the hospital where I was born, into an abattoir of suffering and neglect for the wounded soldiers you tore apart for a lie.
4. You let Dick "Crazy-Eyes" Cheney do whatever the hell he wanted to whomever he wanted whenever and wherever he wanted, and be damned to the damned old Constitution anyway. Cheney once said the vice president's office was not part of the same branch of government as the president's office, and he said it with his bare face hanging out the whole time. Why? He didn't want to give any of his official papers over to the National Archives, as mandated by at least two federal laws. Nope, he said, my office is in Congress today, sorry about that, but be sure to come on back after you drop dead. Or words to that effect. That's about one zillionth of a percent of what he did, because you let him pick himself to be your boss.
5. On July 19, 2006, you vetoed H.R. 810. On June 20, 2007, you vetoed S. 5. Both vetoes killed legislation aimed at funding and vastly enhancing the reach and scope of stem cell research in America. The father of someone I know died of bone marrow cancer just after that first veto; he was adopted, no family could be located, so no donor match for a bone marrow transplant could be found. With stem cell therapy, doctors could have taken his own marrow and grown enough healthy, matching marrow to save his life. Two other people I know have diabetes, like millions of Americans. Stem cell research could offer them a cure. Someone else I know has multiple sclerosis, and stem cell research could very well help her, too. She'd write you a thank-you note for those vetoes, but her right hand doesn't work so well anymore. She's getting better with her left hand, so maybe that note can get written next year.
Also, you defied lawfully issued subpoenas and potentially set a precedent that could shatter the separation of powers. You told the American people Iraq was in possession of 26,000 liters of anthrax, 38,000 liters of botulinum toxin, 500 tons - which is one million pounds - of sarin, mustard and VX nerve agent, 30,000 missiles to deliver the stuff, mobile biological weapons labs, al-Qaeda connections and uranium from Niger for use in a robust nuclear weapons program, even though all of that was a lie. You made a joking video about not being able to find any of it. You outed a deep-cover CIA agent who was running a network designed to keep weapons of mass destruction out of the hands of terrorists, and you did so because her ambassador husband told the truth about you in the public prints.
You gave away our right to privacy by sending the NSA to spy on us. You turned us all into torturers and butchers in the eyes of the world with your decision to use Abu Ghraib prison the same way Saddam Hussein once did. You tried to appoint Henry Kissinger to lead the investigation into 9/11. You turned the entire Justice Department into a carnival of political hackery. You championed the economic policies and deregulation fantasies that have left the financial stability of millions in ashes. You used the threat of terrorism against your own people in order to give yourself political cover. You killed hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people who did you nor us no harm.
You did all this, and so much more.
From a certain perspective, one could argue that you have been the most successful president the country has ever seen. Think about it, because according to your definition of "success," it's true. You came into office looking to make your friends richer, and to fulfill as best you could your most overriding personal belief: that government is the problem, so government must be damaged and denuded to the point of impotence. Through your tax cuts and your two vastly expensive boondoggle wars, you made your friends rich. By unleashing Mr. Cheney and your other minions, you tore the Constitution to shreds and tatters. You have achieved both goals in smashing style, so from that certain perspective, you have triumphed.
Could you also, from the proper perspective, be considered our greatest president?
Perhaps, someday, if we make it so.
It will be in the best interests of many powerful people if we as a nation simply dismiss you and forget you ever happened. A lot of news media people want us to forget you, because in forgetting you, we would forget the media's vast complicity in your actions and misdeeds. A lot of rich people making new fortunes from war profiteering and defense contracts want us to forget they and you even exist, as it would make it possible for them to do it all again someday. A lot of politicians who stapled themselves to you would simply adore it if we forgot about you. The Republican Party would be forever in our debt if we forgot about you.
No. We will not forget you. We will remember.
We the people are going to save you from ignominious oblivion. We will remember. You could be the president who doomed America, the worst president of all time, but we must not, will not let that happen. You will be remembered differently, because we will hold the memory of you high, and behold you, and say, "Never, never, never again." We have tasted the soot and smelled the blood on the wind; we have seen how fragile our way of government is when placed in the hands of low men such as you, and because of that, you will be remembered for all time.
Your greatness will be defined by how we rise to overcome and undo what you have done. Your greatness will stand forever if we never, ever forget the hard, bitter lessons you taught us. We are responsible for this republic, for our Constitution, and for each other. We are our brother's keeper. You taught us that by becoming our Cain. You nearly slew us, but here we stand, and we defy the place in history you would relegate us to. We defy you, and by doing so, we rise.
Something like you must never again be allowed to happen to this country, and if we save ourselves by preventing you from ever happening again, your greatness is assured. You are the tallest of all possible warnings, and a promise all of us must solemnly and stalwartly keep. If we can damn you to the past, we will save our own future.
May you live forever, you son of a bitch.
From Truthout.org
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
Breaking News.... More innocents killed...were these human shields too???
I know, I am going to be labeled as anti-Israel or anti-Semitic, but how can you be sympathetic to something like this?? It was clearly marked as a UN school. These people are leaving their homes to try to find a safe place, and thinking the school is safe. They aren't allowed to leave the country, WHERE CAN THEY GO??? Can they stand another 7 to 10 days of this?? That's what Israel is saying they need. What about the innocent victims?? What about what they need?? The Palestinians need relief, they need food, they need medical supplies. What about that?? Here is also another video that shows some more of the problems they are facing.
This is just in from MSNBC :
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip - Israeli tank fire killed at least 30 Palestinians at a United Nations-run school in the Gaza Strip on Tuesday, medical sources at two hospitals said.
Two tank shells exploded outside the school, spraying shrapnel on people inside and outside the building, where hundreds of Palestinians had sought refuge from fighting between Israeli soldiers and Hamas militants. In addition to the dead, several dozen people were wounded, the officials said.
Medical officials said all the dead were either people sheltering in the school or local residents.
The United Nations also said three civilians were killed in the airstrike late Monday on the courtyard of another school, where hundreds of people from a Gaza City refugee camp had sought shelter from Israel's blistering 11-day offensive against the Hamas militant group.
The attacks came as Israeli forces edged closer to Gaza's major population centers, after ignoring mounting international calls for an immediate cease-fire. A Palestinian rocket attack wounded an Israeli infant.
'There's nowhere safe in Gaza'
"There's nowhere safe in Gaza. Everyone here is terrorized and traumatized," said John Ging, the top U.N. official in Gaza.
Tanks rumbled closer to the towns of Khan Younis and Dir el Balah in south and central Gaza but were still several miles outside, witnesses said, adding that the sounds of fighting could be heard from around the new Israeli positions. Israel, which has already encircled Gaza City, the area's biggest city, ignored mounting international calls for an immediate cease-fire.
Israel launched its offensive on Dec. 27 to halt repeated Palestinian rocket attacks on its southern towns. After a weeklong air campaign, Israeli ground forces invaded Gaza over the weekend. More than 500 Palestinians have been killed, including more than 100 civilians, according to United Nations figures. Nine Israelis have died since the operation began.
Israel says it won't stop the assault until its southern towns are freed of the threat of Palestinian rocket fire and it receives international guarantees that Hamas, a militant group backed by Iran and Syria, will not restock its weapons stockpile. It blames Hamas for the civilian casualties, saying the group intentionally seeks cover in crowded residential areas.
Israeli leaders say there is no humanitarian crisis and that they have allowed the delivery of vital supplies.
'Full-blown' humanitarian crisis
"I am appealing to political leaders here and in the region and the world to get their act together and stop this," the U.N.'s Ging said, speaking at Gaza's largest hospital. "They are responsible for these deaths."
U.N. officials say they provided their location coordinates to Israel's army to ensure that their buildings in Gaza are not targeted. The Israeli army had no comment on the latest strikes, but in the past has accused militants of using schools, mosques and residential neighborhoods to store weapons or launch attacks.
The International Red Cross also was looking into reports that a Red Crescent ambulance station in the northern town of Jebaliya was hit during the night.
Gaza is now in a "full-blown" humanitarian crisis, the International Committee of the Red Cross' head of operations Pierre Kraehenbuehl said.
Many Gazans are without electricity or running water, thousands have been displaced from their homes and residents say that without distribution disrupted, food supplies are running thin.
The situation for Palestinian civilians is "extreme and traumatic as a result of 10 days of uninterrupted fighting, Kraehenbuehl said.
He said ICRC staff in Gaza told the neutral body Tuesday that the previous night was "the most frightening of all to date" on account of the ground offensive Israel has launched in the Palestinian territory.
Palestinian medical officials said 35 Palestinian civilians were killed Tuesday, including 11 in a house that was bombed from the air, 10 on a beach hit by naval shells and the three who had taken refuge in the U.N.'s school.
Four militants also were killed, medical officials said.
Harsh blow to Hamas?
The army says it has dealt a harsh blow to Hamas, killing 130 militants in the past two days and greatly reducing the rocket fire. At least 15 rockets were fired Tuesday and one landed in the town of Gadera, about 25 miles from the Gaza border, lightly wounding a 3-month-old infant, police said.
Israeli forces have cut the main Gaza highway in several places, compartmentalizing the strip into the north, south and Gaza City itself and preventing movement between them. Israel also has taken over high-rise buildings in Gaza City and destroyed dozens of smuggling tunnels — Hamas' main lifeline — along the Egyptian border.
Late on Monday, a paratroop officer and three Israeli infantrymen were killed in two separate friendly fire incidents, the military said. Heavy Israeli casualties could threaten to undermine what so far has been wide public support for the operation.
A high-level European Union delegation met with President Shimon Peres on Tuesday in a futile bid to put an end to the violence. Commissioner Benita Ferraro-Waldner acknowledged Israel's right to self-defense, but said its response was disproportionate.
"We have come to Israel in order to advance the initiative for a humanitarian cease-fire and I will tell you, Mr. President, that you have a serious problem with international advocacy, and that Israel's image is being destroyed," she said, according to a statement from Peres' office.
She said international relief organizations have complained that there is a serious problem distributing aid in Gaza.
The EU delegation was one of a flurry of diplomatic efforts to forge a cease-fire. French President Nicolas Sarkozy left Israel after meetings with leaders.
'Make-or-break issue'
Europe "wants a cease-fire as quickly as possible," Sarkozy said Monday, urging Israel to halt the offensive, while blaming Hamas for acting "irresponsibly and unpardonably."
International efforts to secure a cease-fire focused on an Israeli demand to prevent Hamas from rearming.
"That is the make-or-break issue," Mark Regev, a spokesman for Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, said about ensuring an end to weapons smuggling along the Gaza-Egypt frontier.
A senior Israeli official said talks were focusing on the size of an "international presence" along the blockaded Gaza-Egypt border, where rockets and other weapons have reached Hamas through a network of tunnels.
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert stressed to Sarkozy that any agreement "must contain at its foundation the total cessation of all arms transfers to Hamas," Regev added.
Regev noted that Hamas used a previous six-month truce to double the range of its rockets. About one-eighth of Israel's 7 million citizens now live in rocket range.
In New York, Arab delegates met with the U.N. Security Council, urging members to adopt a resolution calling for an immediate end to the attacks and a permanent cease-fire.
'Caused by Hamas'
In Washington, the State Department said the U.S. was pressing for a cease-fire that would include a halt to rocket attacks and an arrangement for reopening crossing points on the border with Israel, said spokesman Sean McCormack. The crossings, used to deliver vital food shipments into Gaza, have been largely closed since Hamas took control of Gaza in June 2007. A third element of a U.S.-backed cease-fire would address the smuggling tunnels used by Hamas.
President George W. Bush emphasized "Israel's desire to protect itself."
"The situation now taking place in Gaza was caused by Hamas," he said.
A top exiled Hamas official in Syria, Moussa Abu Marzouk, rejected the U.S. proposal, telling the AP the U.S. plan seeks to impose "a de facto situation" and encourages Israel to continue its attacks on Gaza.
On Tuesday the Israeli military said three soldiers were killed and 24 wounded in a friendly fire incident when an Israeli tank shelled a building in which they had taken cover Monday night during fighting outside Gaza City. The military said a colonel who commanded an infantry brigade was among the wounded.
In a separate friendly fire incident, also Monday, a paratroops officer was killed in northern Gaza, the army said. In all, six soldiers have been killed since the offensive began.
Israeli forces detained 80 Palestinians — some of them suspected Hamas members — and transferred several to Israel for interrogation, said military officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not allowed to release the information.
Israel's operation has sparked anger across the Arab world and has drawn criticism from countries such as Turkey, Egypt and Jordan, which have ties with Israel and have been intimately involved in Mideast peacemaking.
Heavy Israeli casualties in the Gaza fighting could erode strong public support for the operation and affect the outcome of Israel's Feb. 10 national election.
Israel pulled its troops and more than 8,000 settlers out of Gaza in 2005 after 38 years of occupation in a move that many at the time hoped would lead to a breakthrough for relations between Israel and the Palestinians.
The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.
Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy
This is just in from MSNBC :
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip - Israeli tank fire killed at least 30 Palestinians at a United Nations-run school in the Gaza Strip on Tuesday, medical sources at two hospitals said.
Two tank shells exploded outside the school, spraying shrapnel on people inside and outside the building, where hundreds of Palestinians had sought refuge from fighting between Israeli soldiers and Hamas militants. In addition to the dead, several dozen people were wounded, the officials said.
Medical officials said all the dead were either people sheltering in the school or local residents.
The United Nations also said three civilians were killed in the airstrike late Monday on the courtyard of another school, where hundreds of people from a Gaza City refugee camp had sought shelter from Israel's blistering 11-day offensive against the Hamas militant group.
The attacks came as Israeli forces edged closer to Gaza's major population centers, after ignoring mounting international calls for an immediate cease-fire. A Palestinian rocket attack wounded an Israeli infant.
'There's nowhere safe in Gaza'
"There's nowhere safe in Gaza. Everyone here is terrorized and traumatized," said John Ging, the top U.N. official in Gaza.
Tanks rumbled closer to the towns of Khan Younis and Dir el Balah in south and central Gaza but were still several miles outside, witnesses said, adding that the sounds of fighting could be heard from around the new Israeli positions. Israel, which has already encircled Gaza City, the area's biggest city, ignored mounting international calls for an immediate cease-fire.
Israel launched its offensive on Dec. 27 to halt repeated Palestinian rocket attacks on its southern towns. After a weeklong air campaign, Israeli ground forces invaded Gaza over the weekend. More than 500 Palestinians have been killed, including more than 100 civilians, according to United Nations figures. Nine Israelis have died since the operation began.
Israel says it won't stop the assault until its southern towns are freed of the threat of Palestinian rocket fire and it receives international guarantees that Hamas, a militant group backed by Iran and Syria, will not restock its weapons stockpile. It blames Hamas for the civilian casualties, saying the group intentionally seeks cover in crowded residential areas.
Israeli leaders say there is no humanitarian crisis and that they have allowed the delivery of vital supplies.
'Full-blown' humanitarian crisis
"I am appealing to political leaders here and in the region and the world to get their act together and stop this," the U.N.'s Ging said, speaking at Gaza's largest hospital. "They are responsible for these deaths."
U.N. officials say they provided their location coordinates to Israel's army to ensure that their buildings in Gaza are not targeted. The Israeli army had no comment on the latest strikes, but in the past has accused militants of using schools, mosques and residential neighborhoods to store weapons or launch attacks.
The International Red Cross also was looking into reports that a Red Crescent ambulance station in the northern town of Jebaliya was hit during the night.
Gaza is now in a "full-blown" humanitarian crisis, the International Committee of the Red Cross' head of operations Pierre Kraehenbuehl said.
Many Gazans are without electricity or running water, thousands have been displaced from their homes and residents say that without distribution disrupted, food supplies are running thin.
The situation for Palestinian civilians is "extreme and traumatic as a result of 10 days of uninterrupted fighting, Kraehenbuehl said.
He said ICRC staff in Gaza told the neutral body Tuesday that the previous night was "the most frightening of all to date" on account of the ground offensive Israel has launched in the Palestinian territory.
Palestinian medical officials said 35 Palestinian civilians were killed Tuesday, including 11 in a house that was bombed from the air, 10 on a beach hit by naval shells and the three who had taken refuge in the U.N.'s school.
Four militants also were killed, medical officials said.
Harsh blow to Hamas?
The army says it has dealt a harsh blow to Hamas, killing 130 militants in the past two days and greatly reducing the rocket fire. At least 15 rockets were fired Tuesday and one landed in the town of Gadera, about 25 miles from the Gaza border, lightly wounding a 3-month-old infant, police said.
Israeli forces have cut the main Gaza highway in several places, compartmentalizing the strip into the north, south and Gaza City itself and preventing movement between them. Israel also has taken over high-rise buildings in Gaza City and destroyed dozens of smuggling tunnels — Hamas' main lifeline — along the Egyptian border.
Late on Monday, a paratroop officer and three Israeli infantrymen were killed in two separate friendly fire incidents, the military said. Heavy Israeli casualties could threaten to undermine what so far has been wide public support for the operation.
A high-level European Union delegation met with President Shimon Peres on Tuesday in a futile bid to put an end to the violence. Commissioner Benita Ferraro-Waldner acknowledged Israel's right to self-defense, but said its response was disproportionate.
"We have come to Israel in order to advance the initiative for a humanitarian cease-fire and I will tell you, Mr. President, that you have a serious problem with international advocacy, and that Israel's image is being destroyed," she said, according to a statement from Peres' office.
She said international relief organizations have complained that there is a serious problem distributing aid in Gaza.
The EU delegation was one of a flurry of diplomatic efforts to forge a cease-fire. French President Nicolas Sarkozy left Israel after meetings with leaders.
'Make-or-break issue'
Europe "wants a cease-fire as quickly as possible," Sarkozy said Monday, urging Israel to halt the offensive, while blaming Hamas for acting "irresponsibly and unpardonably."
International efforts to secure a cease-fire focused on an Israeli demand to prevent Hamas from rearming.
"That is the make-or-break issue," Mark Regev, a spokesman for Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, said about ensuring an end to weapons smuggling along the Gaza-Egypt frontier.
A senior Israeli official said talks were focusing on the size of an "international presence" along the blockaded Gaza-Egypt border, where rockets and other weapons have reached Hamas through a network of tunnels.
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert stressed to Sarkozy that any agreement "must contain at its foundation the total cessation of all arms transfers to Hamas," Regev added.
Regev noted that Hamas used a previous six-month truce to double the range of its rockets. About one-eighth of Israel's 7 million citizens now live in rocket range.
In New York, Arab delegates met with the U.N. Security Council, urging members to adopt a resolution calling for an immediate end to the attacks and a permanent cease-fire.
'Caused by Hamas'
In Washington, the State Department said the U.S. was pressing for a cease-fire that would include a halt to rocket attacks and an arrangement for reopening crossing points on the border with Israel, said spokesman Sean McCormack. The crossings, used to deliver vital food shipments into Gaza, have been largely closed since Hamas took control of Gaza in June 2007. A third element of a U.S.-backed cease-fire would address the smuggling tunnels used by Hamas.
President George W. Bush emphasized "Israel's desire to protect itself."
"The situation now taking place in Gaza was caused by Hamas," he said.
A top exiled Hamas official in Syria, Moussa Abu Marzouk, rejected the U.S. proposal, telling the AP the U.S. plan seeks to impose "a de facto situation" and encourages Israel to continue its attacks on Gaza.
On Tuesday the Israeli military said three soldiers were killed and 24 wounded in a friendly fire incident when an Israeli tank shelled a building in which they had taken cover Monday night during fighting outside Gaza City. The military said a colonel who commanded an infantry brigade was among the wounded.
In a separate friendly fire incident, also Monday, a paratroops officer was killed in northern Gaza, the army said. In all, six soldiers have been killed since the offensive began.
Israeli forces detained 80 Palestinians — some of them suspected Hamas members — and transferred several to Israel for interrogation, said military officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not allowed to release the information.
Israel's operation has sparked anger across the Arab world and has drawn criticism from countries such as Turkey, Egypt and Jordan, which have ties with Israel and have been intimately involved in Mideast peacemaking.
Heavy Israeli casualties in the Gaza fighting could erode strong public support for the operation and affect the outcome of Israel's Feb. 10 national election.
Israel pulled its troops and more than 8,000 settlers out of Gaza in 2005 after 38 years of occupation in a move that many at the time hoped would lead to a breakthrough for relations between Israel and the Palestinians.
The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.
Gaza/Israeli still going on. The innocent are still falling.
Here are two video's of reports of the fighting in Gaza. The first one is very graphic. Be prepared. I mean VERY GRAPHIC.
The second is just a news report from around the world from Al Jazeera who is the only news agency allowed in Gaza.
I am still just in disbelief over this. My heart aches for the people who are suffering. These families don't deserve this. These people have no where to go, they are not allowed to leave, and they are in their homes and Israel is bombing them with abandon. I know Hamas is still sending missiles over Israel, but couldn't they stop for a while and at least try to talk?? Why are these innocent children being slaughtered?? I don't for a minute believe the hype that they were all used for the human shields as was being put out earlier. I just don't see it in every instance.
Sorry, I can't go on any more...Here are the video's.. You make the decisions you need to make. I can only say what is in my heart and mind. These are short..only about 2 minutes each.
The second is just a news report from around the world from Al Jazeera who is the only news agency allowed in Gaza.
I am still just in disbelief over this. My heart aches for the people who are suffering. These families don't deserve this. These people have no where to go, they are not allowed to leave, and they are in their homes and Israel is bombing them with abandon. I know Hamas is still sending missiles over Israel, but couldn't they stop for a while and at least try to talk?? Why are these innocent children being slaughtered?? I don't for a minute believe the hype that they were all used for the human shields as was being put out earlier. I just don't see it in every instance.
Sorry, I can't go on any more...Here are the video's.. You make the decisions you need to make. I can only say what is in my heart and mind. These are short..only about 2 minutes each.
Monday, January 5, 2009
Israel vows to continue pounding Gaza
It seems this is just going to continue. I don't pretend to understand all the ins and outs of this war. There are no right sides in this I don't believe. However I still don't think the Israeli response is right. I understand their position, but I just can't see how the scope of this attack is in any way right. Maybe I am naive. As I said the other day, it looks like David and Goliath and this time Goliath is winning. The innocent are the ones who are suffering, and they are the ones I feel sorry for, they are the ones the leaders seem to forget. They are the ones most everyone seems to forget. I just hope and pray it ends soon.
From MSNBC
7 Palestinian children killed Monday in offensive against Hamas militants
The Associated Press
updated 6:55 a.m. CT, Mon., Jan. 5, 2009
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip - Israeli forces consolidated their hold on parts of Gaza's north Monday, pounding the territory from the air, land and sea and killing at least seven children and six other civilians in a bruising campaign against Hamas militants.
Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak said the offensive would continue until Israel achieved "peace and tranquility" for residents of southern Israel who continued to be bombarded by Palestinian rocket and mortar fire.
A stream of diplomats and world leaders hoping to end the violence headed for the region to meet with Israeli leaders as world outrage over ballooning Palestinian casualties mounted. Gaza health officials reported 524 dead and nearly 2,000 wounded since Israel embarked upon its military campaign against Gaza's Islamic Hamas rulers on Dec. 27. At least 200 civilians were among the dead.
Israeli forces seized sparsely populated areas in northern Gaza and by Monday morning were dug in on the edges of Gaza City. Further movement into the heart of the built-up areas would mean deadly urban warfare, with house-to-house fighting, sniper fire and booby traps in crowded streets and alleyways familiar to Hamas' 20,000 fighters.
Civilian casualties mount
Thirteen civilians died in the various attacks across Gaza on Monday morning, said Gaza health official Dr. Moaiya Hassanain.
Four young siblings were killed in a missile strike on a house east of Gaza City. Three other children died in a naval shelling of a Gaza City beach camp and three adult civilians died when a missile struck near a house of mourning in the northern town of Beit Lahiya, he said. Three other adult civilians died in attacks elsewhere.
Israeli troops took over three six-floor buildings on the outskirts of Gaza City, taking up rooftop positions after locking residents in rooms and taking away their cell phones, a neighbor said, quoting a relative in one of the buildings before his phone was taken away.
"The army is there, firing in all directions," said Mohammed Salmai, a 29-year-old truck driver. "All we can do is take clothes to each other to keep ourselves warm and pray to God that if we die, someone will find our bodies under the rubble."
Civilian casualties have spiked since Israel launched a ground offensive Saturday, following a week of punishing air strikes. Of about 80 Palestinians killed during the ground operation, at least 70 were civilians, Hassanain said.
Black smoke from tank shells and windswept dust billowed in the air over Gaza City, while white smoke from mortar shells rose in plumes above a main road leading to northern Gaza that the Israeli military seized on Sunday, cutting off Gaza's north from its south. Explosions could be heard in Gaza City as aircraft attacked buildings.
The streets of Gaza City, home to 400,000 people, were almost empty. Two children crossing a street near a Hamas security compound didn't look right and left for cars but gazed up at the sky, apparently looking for attack aircraft. The only vehicles on the road were fire engines, ambulances and press cars.
Unmanned Israeli planes and Apache helicopters circled overhead.
Both sides make demands
"Hamas has sustained a very harsh blow," Barak told parliament's foreign affairs and defense committee. "But we still haven't reached our objectives, so the offensive continues."
Israel has three main demands: an end to Palestinian attacks, international supervision of any truce and a halt to Hamas rearming.
"If we withdraw today, without reaching some kind of comprehensive agreement, we haven't done anything," Israeli Cabinet Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer told Army Radio. "The military has to carry on with its work."
Hamas demands a cessation of Israeli attacks and the opening of vital Gaza-Israel cargo crossings, Gaza's main lifeline.
Hamas security said Israeli aircraft struck two mosques in central and northern Gaza, while ground troops battled with militants armed with mortar shells, grenades and antitank missiles in the area between Gaza City, Gaza's largest urban area, and Jebaliya to the north.
The ground clashes took place in open areas militants use to launch rockets and mortars at nearby Israeli communities, but did not advance into urban areas where casualties are liable to swell.
The Israeli military said aircraft carried out 30 sorties overnight, striking a mosque in Jebaliya that contained a large store of weapons, and an underground arms bunker in the Gaza City area that touched off secondary explosions and collapsed underground smuggling tunnels.
Aircraft also hit weapons smuggling tunnels in southern Gaza near the Egyptian border and went after the houses of Hamas members where weapons were stored, the military said. A rocket launcher and suspected anti-aircraft missile launcher were also targeted, it said.
The violence has deepened the suffering in impoverished Gaza, home to 1.4 million people. The military said Monday that 80 truckloads of humanitarian aid and critical fuel supplies would be let in.
Militants, defying the attacks, fired more than a dozen rockets at Israel early Monday, police said. No injuries were reported, but the rockets continued to fire deep inside Israel, some 20 miles from the Gaza border. One reason Israel launched the Gaza campaign was because militants have acquired weapons able to reach closer to Israel's Tel Aviv heartland.
Israel's ground operation is the second phase in an offensive that began as a weeklong aerial onslaught aimed at halting Hamas rocket fire that now threatens major cities and one-eighth of Israel's population of 7 million people.
The spiraling civilian casualties have fueled an intensifying international outcry.
Five Israelis have been killed since the offensive began. One soldier has been killed in the ground operation and about 40 were wounded, some of them in heavy exchanges of fire near the militant stronghold of Jebaliya, a town on Gaza City's northern outskirts. Heavy Israeli casualties could undermine what has so far been overwhelming public support for the operation.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who unsuccessfully proposed a two-day truce before the land invasion began, was due to meet with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who lost control of Gaza to Hamas in June 2007.
While blaming Hamas for causing Palestinian suffering with rocket fire that led to the Israeli offensive, Sarkozy has condemned Israel's use of ground troops, reflecting general world opinion. Sarkozy and other diplomats making their way to the region are expected to press hard for a cease-fire.
A European Union delegation including foreign policy chief Javier Solana was due to meet with Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni.
The Czech Republic, which took over the 27-nation EU's presidency on Thursday, urged Israel to allow humanitarian relief aid into Gaza. German Chancellor Angela Merkel spoke on the phone Sunday with Olmert and advocated a quick cease-fire in Gaza, her government said in a statement. Merkel also called for an end to the smuggling of weapons into the Gaza Strip.
Turkey and Egypt, which have both been involved intimately in Middle East peacemaking, have denounced the ground offensive.
From MSNBC
7 Palestinian children killed Monday in offensive against Hamas militants
The Associated Press
updated 6:55 a.m. CT, Mon., Jan. 5, 2009
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip - Israeli forces consolidated their hold on parts of Gaza's north Monday, pounding the territory from the air, land and sea and killing at least seven children and six other civilians in a bruising campaign against Hamas militants.
Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak said the offensive would continue until Israel achieved "peace and tranquility" for residents of southern Israel who continued to be bombarded by Palestinian rocket and mortar fire.
A stream of diplomats and world leaders hoping to end the violence headed for the region to meet with Israeli leaders as world outrage over ballooning Palestinian casualties mounted. Gaza health officials reported 524 dead and nearly 2,000 wounded since Israel embarked upon its military campaign against Gaza's Islamic Hamas rulers on Dec. 27. At least 200 civilians were among the dead.
Israeli forces seized sparsely populated areas in northern Gaza and by Monday morning were dug in on the edges of Gaza City. Further movement into the heart of the built-up areas would mean deadly urban warfare, with house-to-house fighting, sniper fire and booby traps in crowded streets and alleyways familiar to Hamas' 20,000 fighters.
Civilian casualties mount
Thirteen civilians died in the various attacks across Gaza on Monday morning, said Gaza health official Dr. Moaiya Hassanain.
Four young siblings were killed in a missile strike on a house east of Gaza City. Three other children died in a naval shelling of a Gaza City beach camp and three adult civilians died when a missile struck near a house of mourning in the northern town of Beit Lahiya, he said. Three other adult civilians died in attacks elsewhere.
Israeli troops took over three six-floor buildings on the outskirts of Gaza City, taking up rooftop positions after locking residents in rooms and taking away their cell phones, a neighbor said, quoting a relative in one of the buildings before his phone was taken away.
"The army is there, firing in all directions," said Mohammed Salmai, a 29-year-old truck driver. "All we can do is take clothes to each other to keep ourselves warm and pray to God that if we die, someone will find our bodies under the rubble."
Civilian casualties have spiked since Israel launched a ground offensive Saturday, following a week of punishing air strikes. Of about 80 Palestinians killed during the ground operation, at least 70 were civilians, Hassanain said.
Black smoke from tank shells and windswept dust billowed in the air over Gaza City, while white smoke from mortar shells rose in plumes above a main road leading to northern Gaza that the Israeli military seized on Sunday, cutting off Gaza's north from its south. Explosions could be heard in Gaza City as aircraft attacked buildings.
The streets of Gaza City, home to 400,000 people, were almost empty. Two children crossing a street near a Hamas security compound didn't look right and left for cars but gazed up at the sky, apparently looking for attack aircraft. The only vehicles on the road were fire engines, ambulances and press cars.
Unmanned Israeli planes and Apache helicopters circled overhead.
Both sides make demands
"Hamas has sustained a very harsh blow," Barak told parliament's foreign affairs and defense committee. "But we still haven't reached our objectives, so the offensive continues."
Israel has three main demands: an end to Palestinian attacks, international supervision of any truce and a halt to Hamas rearming.
"If we withdraw today, without reaching some kind of comprehensive agreement, we haven't done anything," Israeli Cabinet Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer told Army Radio. "The military has to carry on with its work."
Hamas demands a cessation of Israeli attacks and the opening of vital Gaza-Israel cargo crossings, Gaza's main lifeline.
Hamas security said Israeli aircraft struck two mosques in central and northern Gaza, while ground troops battled with militants armed with mortar shells, grenades and antitank missiles in the area between Gaza City, Gaza's largest urban area, and Jebaliya to the north.
The ground clashes took place in open areas militants use to launch rockets and mortars at nearby Israeli communities, but did not advance into urban areas where casualties are liable to swell.
The Israeli military said aircraft carried out 30 sorties overnight, striking a mosque in Jebaliya that contained a large store of weapons, and an underground arms bunker in the Gaza City area that touched off secondary explosions and collapsed underground smuggling tunnels.
Aircraft also hit weapons smuggling tunnels in southern Gaza near the Egyptian border and went after the houses of Hamas members where weapons were stored, the military said. A rocket launcher and suspected anti-aircraft missile launcher were also targeted, it said.
The violence has deepened the suffering in impoverished Gaza, home to 1.4 million people. The military said Monday that 80 truckloads of humanitarian aid and critical fuel supplies would be let in.
Militants, defying the attacks, fired more than a dozen rockets at Israel early Monday, police said. No injuries were reported, but the rockets continued to fire deep inside Israel, some 20 miles from the Gaza border. One reason Israel launched the Gaza campaign was because militants have acquired weapons able to reach closer to Israel's Tel Aviv heartland.
Israel's ground operation is the second phase in an offensive that began as a weeklong aerial onslaught aimed at halting Hamas rocket fire that now threatens major cities and one-eighth of Israel's population of 7 million people.
The spiraling civilian casualties have fueled an intensifying international outcry.
Five Israelis have been killed since the offensive began. One soldier has been killed in the ground operation and about 40 were wounded, some of them in heavy exchanges of fire near the militant stronghold of Jebaliya, a town on Gaza City's northern outskirts. Heavy Israeli casualties could undermine what has so far been overwhelming public support for the operation.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who unsuccessfully proposed a two-day truce before the land invasion began, was due to meet with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who lost control of Gaza to Hamas in June 2007.
While blaming Hamas for causing Palestinian suffering with rocket fire that led to the Israeli offensive, Sarkozy has condemned Israel's use of ground troops, reflecting general world opinion. Sarkozy and other diplomats making their way to the region are expected to press hard for a cease-fire.
A European Union delegation including foreign policy chief Javier Solana was due to meet with Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni.
The Czech Republic, which took over the 27-nation EU's presidency on Thursday, urged Israel to allow humanitarian relief aid into Gaza. German Chancellor Angela Merkel spoke on the phone Sunday with Olmert and advocated a quick cease-fire in Gaza, her government said in a statement. Merkel also called for an end to the smuggling of weapons into the Gaza Strip.
Turkey and Egypt, which have both been involved intimately in Middle East peacemaking, have denounced the ground offensive.
Sunday, January 4, 2009
Pictures of the Conflict in Gaza from the Washington Post
These are pictures from the conflict in Gaza and Israel and around the world. Protestors, fighting, injured, dead, just a little bit of everything. It can be played as a slide show if you want. It will open as a web page and you can go from there. I have to warn you some of the pictures are very GRAPHIC. Remember this is a war. So here you go... from the Washington Post.
Again... remember some of these pictures are GRAPHIC
Again... remember some of these pictures are GRAPHIC
US Blocks UN statement on Gaza
Full story at MSNBC
UNITED NATIONS - The United States late Saturday blocked approval of a U.N. Security Council statement calling for an immediate cease-fire in the Gaza Strip and southern Israel and expressing concern at the escalation of violence between Israel and Hamas.
U.S. deputy ambassador Alejandro Wolff said the United States saw no prospect of Hamas abiding by last week's council call for an immediate end to the violence. Therefore, he said, a new statement at this time "would not be adhered to and would have no underpinning for success, would not do credit to the council."
France's U.N. Ambassador Jean-Maurice Ripert, the current council president, announced that there was no agreement among members on a statement. But he said there were "strong convergences" among the 15 members to express serious concern about the deteriorating situation in Gaza and the need for "an immediate, permanent and fully respected cease-fire."
Arab nations demanded that the council adopt a statement calling for an immediate cease-fire following Israel's launch of a ground offensive in Gaza earlier Saturday, a view echoed by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.
Libya's U.N. Ambassador Giadalla Ettalhi, the only Arab member of the council, said the United States objected to "any outcome" during the closed council discussions on the proposed statement.
(snip)
The 15-member council had met behind closed doors to discuss a proposed presidential statement that would also call for all parties to address the humanitarian and economic needs in Gaza, including by opening border crossings.
The five permanent council members — the U.S., Britain, France, Russia and China — along with Libya, the only Arab nation on the council, then met privately to discuss possibly issuing another press statement.
"We need to have from the Security Council reaction tonight to bring this latest addition of aggression against our people in Gaza to an immediate halt," Riyad Mansour, the Palestinian U.N. observer told reporters.
The statement would have become part of the council's official record but would not have the weight of a Security Council resolution, which is legally binding.
Mansour said 3,000 Palestinians have been killed and injured since Israeli warplanes starting bombing Gaza a week ago. More than 480 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza and four killed in Israel.
(snip)
Before the council met Saturday night, Ban telephoned Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and said he was disappointed that Israel launched a ground offensive and "alarmed that this escalation will inevitably increase the already heavy suffering" of Palestinian civilians, the U.N. spokesman's office said in a statement.
(snip)
Several Arab foreign ministers are expected at U.N. headquarters on Monday to urge the Security Council to adopt a resolution ending the Israeli offensive. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas delayed his arrival until Tuesday so he can meet French President Nicolas Sarkozy in the West Bank.
UNITED NATIONS - The United States late Saturday blocked approval of a U.N. Security Council statement calling for an immediate cease-fire in the Gaza Strip and southern Israel and expressing concern at the escalation of violence between Israel and Hamas.
U.S. deputy ambassador Alejandro Wolff said the United States saw no prospect of Hamas abiding by last week's council call for an immediate end to the violence. Therefore, he said, a new statement at this time "would not be adhered to and would have no underpinning for success, would not do credit to the council."
France's U.N. Ambassador Jean-Maurice Ripert, the current council president, announced that there was no agreement among members on a statement. But he said there were "strong convergences" among the 15 members to express serious concern about the deteriorating situation in Gaza and the need for "an immediate, permanent and fully respected cease-fire."
Arab nations demanded that the council adopt a statement calling for an immediate cease-fire following Israel's launch of a ground offensive in Gaza earlier Saturday, a view echoed by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.
Libya's U.N. Ambassador Giadalla Ettalhi, the only Arab member of the council, said the United States objected to "any outcome" during the closed council discussions on the proposed statement.
(snip)
The 15-member council had met behind closed doors to discuss a proposed presidential statement that would also call for all parties to address the humanitarian and economic needs in Gaza, including by opening border crossings.
The five permanent council members — the U.S., Britain, France, Russia and China — along with Libya, the only Arab nation on the council, then met privately to discuss possibly issuing another press statement.
"We need to have from the Security Council reaction tonight to bring this latest addition of aggression against our people in Gaza to an immediate halt," Riyad Mansour, the Palestinian U.N. observer told reporters.
The statement would have become part of the council's official record but would not have the weight of a Security Council resolution, which is legally binding.
Mansour said 3,000 Palestinians have been killed and injured since Israeli warplanes starting bombing Gaza a week ago. More than 480 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza and four killed in Israel.
(snip)
Before the council met Saturday night, Ban telephoned Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and said he was disappointed that Israel launched a ground offensive and "alarmed that this escalation will inevitably increase the already heavy suffering" of Palestinian civilians, the U.N. spokesman's office said in a statement.
(snip)
Several Arab foreign ministers are expected at U.N. headquarters on Monday to urge the Security Council to adopt a resolution ending the Israeli offensive. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas delayed his arrival until Tuesday so he can meet French President Nicolas Sarkozy in the West Bank.
Israeli forces bisect Gaza, surround biggest city
By IBRAHIM BARZAK and MATTI FRIEDMAN, Associated Press Writers Ibrahim Barzak And Matti Friedman, Associated Press Writers
27 mins ago
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip – Israeli ground troops and tanks cut swaths through the Gaza Strip early Sunday, bisecting the coastal territory and surrounding its biggest city as the new phase of a devastating offensive against Hamas gained momentum.
Thousands of soldiers in three brigade-size formations pushed into Gaza after nightfall Saturday, beginning a long-awaited ground offensive after a week of intense aerial bombardment. Black smoke billowed over Gaza City at first light and bursts of machine gun fire rang out.
TV footage showed Israeli troops with night-vision goggles and camouflage face paint marching in single file. Artillery barrages preceded their advance, and they moved through fields and orchards following bomb-sniffing dogs ensuring their routes had not been booby-trapped.
The military said troops killed or wounded dozens of militant fighters, but Palestinian medical teams in Gaza, unable to move because of the fighting, could not provide accurate casualty figures.
Hamas said only four fighters had been killed. Gaza health officials said around 20 civilians had also died in airstrikes and shelling. They included a 12-year-old girl, five members of the same family and another eight civilians killed by a tank shell in the northern Gaza town of Beit Lahiya.
The new deaths brought the toll in the Gaza Strip since Saturday to more than 500. Palestinian and U.N. officials say at least 100 civilians are among the dead.
Army ambulances were seen bringing Israeli wounded to a hospital in the southern Israeli city of Beersheba. The military reported 30 Israeli troops were wounded, two seriously, in the opening hours of the offensive.
In his first public comments since the ground operation was launched, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told his Cabinet on Sunday that Israel could not allow its civilians to continue to be targeted by rockets from Gaza.
"This morning I can look every one you in the eyes and say the government did everything before deciding to go ahead with the operation," he said.
A senior military officer said Hamas was well-prepared for the Israeli incursion into Gaza, a densely populated territory of 1.4 million where militants operate and easily hide in the crowded urban landscape. He said the operation was "not a rapid one that would end in hours or a few days."
Still, he said, "We have no intention of staying in the Gaza Strip for the long term." He spoke on condition of anonymity in accordance with army regulations.
Israel says the objective is to restore quiet to Israel's south, not to topple Hamas or reoccupy Gaza.
Hamas threatened to turn Gaza into a "graveyard" for Israeli forces.
"You entered like rats," Hamas spokesman Ismail Radwan told Israeli soldiers in a statement on Hamas' Al Aqsa TV. "Gaza will be a graveyard for you, God willing."
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Sunday denounced the ground offensive as "brutal aggression," his harshest words yet in describing the assault on his Hamas rivals. Abbas said the situation has become unbearable and that "national unity is the most important thing to us."
His offer to start talks on sharing power still stands, Abbas said, though Hamas last week ignored the invitation.
The ground operation is the second phase in an offensive that began as a weeklong aerial onslaught aimed at halting Hamas rocket fire that has reached deeper and deeper into Israel, threatening major cities and one-eighth of Israel's population.
Rocket fire has persisted, however, and several rockets fell in Israel on Sunday morning, causing no casualties. In much of southern Israel school has been canceled and life has been largely paralyzed.
While the air offensive presented little risk for Israel's army, sending in ground troops is a much more dangerous proposition. Hamas is believed to have some 20,000 gunman who know the dense urban landscape intimately. For months, Israeli leaders had resisted a ground invasion, fearing heavy casualties.
Israel also has called up tens of thousands of reserve soldiers, which defense officials said could enable a far broader ground offensive as the operation's third phase. The troops could also be used in the event Palestinian militants in the West Bank or Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon decide to launch attacks. Hezbollah opened a war against Israel in 2006 when it was in the midst of a large operation in Gaza.
The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because the military's preparations are classified.
An armored force south of Gaza City penetrated as deep as the abandoned settlement of Netzarim, which Israel left along with other Israeli communities when it pulled out of Gaza in 2005, both military officials and Palestinian witnesses said.
That move effectively cut off Gaza City, the territory's largest population center with about 400,000 people, from the rest of the territory to the south.
The offensive focused on northern Gaza, where most of the rockets are fired into Israel, but at least one incursion was reported in the southern part of the strip. Hamas uses smuggling tunnels along the southern border with Egypt to bring in weapons.
Ground forces had not entered major Gaza towns and cities by Sunday morning, instead fighting in rural communities and open areas militants often use to launch rockets and mortar rounds. Militants also fire from heavily populated neighborhoods.
Beit Lahiya was the scene of some of the heaviest fighting. An artillery shell killed eight civilians there as they were fleeing their homes to seek refuge at a nearby school, according to paramedics and Dr. Said Judeh, director of the Kamal Adwan Hospital in town.
The home of a farmer in the Beit Lahiya area was hit twice by artillery, killing a five members of one family, Judeh said.
An airstrike hit an ambulance and three medics were reported in critical condition, officials said.
Residents of the small northern Gaza community of al-Attatra said soldiers moved from house to house by blowing holes through walls. Most of the houses were unoccupied, their residents already having fled.
Hamas militants fired mortar shells and rocket-propelled grenades. Field commanders communicated over walkie talkies, updating gunmen on the location of Israeli forces. Commanders told gunmen in the streets not to gather in groups and not to use cell phones.
Israel launched the air campaign against Gaza on Dec. 27 with the aim of halting militant rocket attacks on its south. The operation appears to have slowed, but not halted the rocket fire. Israeli police said 13 rockets landed Sunday, lightly wounding one person.
Hundreds of rockets have hit Israel so far, and four Israelis have been killed. Warning sirens give residents notice of incoming militant rockets and allow them to take cover.
The decision to send ground troops into Gaza was taken after Hamas kept up its rocket fire despite the aerial assault, government officials said. They spoke on condition of anonymity because discussions leading up to wartime decisions are confidential.
U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon conveyed his "extreme concern and disappointment" to Olmert and called for an immediate end to the operation, according to a U.N. statement Sunday.
Denunciations also came from the French government, which unsuccessfully proposed a two-day truce earlier this week, and from Egypt, which brokered the six-month truce whose breakdown preceded the Israeli offensive.
But the U.S. has put the blame squarely on Hamas. White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe said U.S. officials have been in regular contact with the Israelis as well as officials from countries in the region and Europe.
At an emergency consultation of the U.N. Security Council on Saturday night, the U.S. blocked approval of a statement demanded by Arab countries that would have called for an immediate cease-fire. U.S. deputy ambassador Alejandro Wolff said the U.S. believed that such a statement "would not be adhered to and would have no underpinning for success, (and) would not do credit to the council."
Hamas began to emerge as Gaza's main power broker when it won Palestinian parliamentary elections three years ago.
27 mins ago
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip – Israeli ground troops and tanks cut swaths through the Gaza Strip early Sunday, bisecting the coastal territory and surrounding its biggest city as the new phase of a devastating offensive against Hamas gained momentum.
Thousands of soldiers in three brigade-size formations pushed into Gaza after nightfall Saturday, beginning a long-awaited ground offensive after a week of intense aerial bombardment. Black smoke billowed over Gaza City at first light and bursts of machine gun fire rang out.
TV footage showed Israeli troops with night-vision goggles and camouflage face paint marching in single file. Artillery barrages preceded their advance, and they moved through fields and orchards following bomb-sniffing dogs ensuring their routes had not been booby-trapped.
The military said troops killed or wounded dozens of militant fighters, but Palestinian medical teams in Gaza, unable to move because of the fighting, could not provide accurate casualty figures.
Hamas said only four fighters had been killed. Gaza health officials said around 20 civilians had also died in airstrikes and shelling. They included a 12-year-old girl, five members of the same family and another eight civilians killed by a tank shell in the northern Gaza town of Beit Lahiya.
The new deaths brought the toll in the Gaza Strip since Saturday to more than 500. Palestinian and U.N. officials say at least 100 civilians are among the dead.
Army ambulances were seen bringing Israeli wounded to a hospital in the southern Israeli city of Beersheba. The military reported 30 Israeli troops were wounded, two seriously, in the opening hours of the offensive.
In his first public comments since the ground operation was launched, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told his Cabinet on Sunday that Israel could not allow its civilians to continue to be targeted by rockets from Gaza.
"This morning I can look every one you in the eyes and say the government did everything before deciding to go ahead with the operation," he said.
A senior military officer said Hamas was well-prepared for the Israeli incursion into Gaza, a densely populated territory of 1.4 million where militants operate and easily hide in the crowded urban landscape. He said the operation was "not a rapid one that would end in hours or a few days."
Still, he said, "We have no intention of staying in the Gaza Strip for the long term." He spoke on condition of anonymity in accordance with army regulations.
Israel says the objective is to restore quiet to Israel's south, not to topple Hamas or reoccupy Gaza.
Hamas threatened to turn Gaza into a "graveyard" for Israeli forces.
"You entered like rats," Hamas spokesman Ismail Radwan told Israeli soldiers in a statement on Hamas' Al Aqsa TV. "Gaza will be a graveyard for you, God willing."
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Sunday denounced the ground offensive as "brutal aggression," his harshest words yet in describing the assault on his Hamas rivals. Abbas said the situation has become unbearable and that "national unity is the most important thing to us."
His offer to start talks on sharing power still stands, Abbas said, though Hamas last week ignored the invitation.
The ground operation is the second phase in an offensive that began as a weeklong aerial onslaught aimed at halting Hamas rocket fire that has reached deeper and deeper into Israel, threatening major cities and one-eighth of Israel's population.
Rocket fire has persisted, however, and several rockets fell in Israel on Sunday morning, causing no casualties. In much of southern Israel school has been canceled and life has been largely paralyzed.
While the air offensive presented little risk for Israel's army, sending in ground troops is a much more dangerous proposition. Hamas is believed to have some 20,000 gunman who know the dense urban landscape intimately. For months, Israeli leaders had resisted a ground invasion, fearing heavy casualties.
Israel also has called up tens of thousands of reserve soldiers, which defense officials said could enable a far broader ground offensive as the operation's third phase. The troops could also be used in the event Palestinian militants in the West Bank or Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon decide to launch attacks. Hezbollah opened a war against Israel in 2006 when it was in the midst of a large operation in Gaza.
The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because the military's preparations are classified.
An armored force south of Gaza City penetrated as deep as the abandoned settlement of Netzarim, which Israel left along with other Israeli communities when it pulled out of Gaza in 2005, both military officials and Palestinian witnesses said.
That move effectively cut off Gaza City, the territory's largest population center with about 400,000 people, from the rest of the territory to the south.
The offensive focused on northern Gaza, where most of the rockets are fired into Israel, but at least one incursion was reported in the southern part of the strip. Hamas uses smuggling tunnels along the southern border with Egypt to bring in weapons.
Ground forces had not entered major Gaza towns and cities by Sunday morning, instead fighting in rural communities and open areas militants often use to launch rockets and mortar rounds. Militants also fire from heavily populated neighborhoods.
Beit Lahiya was the scene of some of the heaviest fighting. An artillery shell killed eight civilians there as they were fleeing their homes to seek refuge at a nearby school, according to paramedics and Dr. Said Judeh, director of the Kamal Adwan Hospital in town.
The home of a farmer in the Beit Lahiya area was hit twice by artillery, killing a five members of one family, Judeh said.
An airstrike hit an ambulance and three medics were reported in critical condition, officials said.
Residents of the small northern Gaza community of al-Attatra said soldiers moved from house to house by blowing holes through walls. Most of the houses were unoccupied, their residents already having fled.
Hamas militants fired mortar shells and rocket-propelled grenades. Field commanders communicated over walkie talkies, updating gunmen on the location of Israeli forces. Commanders told gunmen in the streets not to gather in groups and not to use cell phones.
Israel launched the air campaign against Gaza on Dec. 27 with the aim of halting militant rocket attacks on its south. The operation appears to have slowed, but not halted the rocket fire. Israeli police said 13 rockets landed Sunday, lightly wounding one person.
Hundreds of rockets have hit Israel so far, and four Israelis have been killed. Warning sirens give residents notice of incoming militant rockets and allow them to take cover.
The decision to send ground troops into Gaza was taken after Hamas kept up its rocket fire despite the aerial assault, government officials said. They spoke on condition of anonymity because discussions leading up to wartime decisions are confidential.
U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon conveyed his "extreme concern and disappointment" to Olmert and called for an immediate end to the operation, according to a U.N. statement Sunday.
Denunciations also came from the French government, which unsuccessfully proposed a two-day truce earlier this week, and from Egypt, which brokered the six-month truce whose breakdown preceded the Israeli offensive.
But the U.S. has put the blame squarely on Hamas. White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe said U.S. officials have been in regular contact with the Israelis as well as officials from countries in the region and Europe.
At an emergency consultation of the U.N. Security Council on Saturday night, the U.S. blocked approval of a statement demanded by Arab countries that would have called for an immediate cease-fire. U.S. deputy ambassador Alejandro Wolff said the U.S. believed that such a statement "would not be adhered to and would have no underpinning for success, (and) would not do credit to the council."
Hamas began to emerge as Gaza's main power broker when it won Palestinian parliamentary elections three years ago.
Saturday, January 3, 2009
Why we need to end the Iraq War
I saw this video on another site...Watergate Summer...great site...Check it out.. she is wonderful...It is just another reason for ending this criminal war in Iraq. We were lied to in order to get there. I have some really strong feelings about this. I have always thought it was wrong. Why, oh Why didn't more people in Congress listen to the people when we protested this wrong war?? And they still don't listen to us. But watch this video...and be prepared...as they say it is a tissue alert.
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
Pres. Bush talking to ABC's Martha Raddatz
President Bush, talking to ABC's Martha Raddatz, talks about the lies leading up to the Iraq invasion and the messy misadventure of the occupation:
BUSH: One of the major theaters against al Qaeda turns out to have been Iraq. This is where al Qaeda said they were going to take their stand. This is where al Qaeda was hoping to take–
RADDATZ: But not until after the U.S. invaded.
BUSH: Yeah, that’s right. So what? The point is that al Qaeda said they’re going to take a stand. Well, first of all in the post-9/11 environment Saddam Hussein posed a threat. And then upon removal, al Qaeda decides to take a stand.
So What?? So What??? So what about the 4,000 lives lost in that war in Iraq and that's just on our side, so to speak. So what about the over 1 million Iraqi lives lost as civilians? So what about the thousands and thousands of injured who can never return to any kind of normal life, who have lost arms, legs, parts of brains, parts of families, parts of lives, parts of their world, parts of themselves that will never be replaced by anything or anyone. SO WHAT??? How can this man sit and say in that smirky attitude of his, SO WHAT??? That to me is just unbelievable. And then he laughs when a man throws a shoe at him. One of the highest insults in the Arabic world. Then says he has no idea why the man would do that. This man has been in an American prison in Iraq, was tortured by Americans and has lost part of his family to American soldiers.
Were they Blackwater mercanaries?? Were they regular military?? We don't know. But Pres. Bush sent them there. And this man holds him responsible. And then he says SO WHAT.
Dubya and his whole administration are determined to spin the whole of the last eight years as "ancient history". Raddatz should have thrown out her script at that point and eaten him alive, but she didn't. Yet another failure of the tame media, who are too afraid of losing their precious access to ask the obvious questions even now. Ian Williams of The Guardian laments the paucity of journalistic backbone on display:
With a few notable exceptions like Helen Thomas, Bush's press conferences have not generated the indignation he so richly deserves from a largely quiescent White House press corps that needs government inspectors and Congressmen to tell it when it can be surprised and even occasionally indignant.
In a parochial way, one can understand why the press corps lacks indignation over Iraq's 100,000,000 civilians dead and injured and over two million external refugees, plus untold more internally displaced.
But it is still surprising that so many reporters can be polite and deferential with someone who has turned the US Federal Reserve into a giant Ponzi scheme and broken the world's strongest economy. They defer humbly to someone who has contrived the deaths of 4,200 US servicemen and women in Iraq. It even failed to follow through on questions about the president's murky military record with the Texas Air National Guard while his peers were dying in Vietnam. This intrepid press
corps showed no compunction in following in minute detail Clinton's screwing
around, but kept silent as Bush screwed entire nations.
Last week, a Senate report pointed the finger directly at Bush and his senior officials for authorising - indeed, ordering - torture and abuse of detainees. But no one threw any shoes.
It is that fawning quiescence that allowed Bush to tell Bob Woodward: "I'm the commander – see, I don't need to explain – I do not need to explain why I say things. That's the interesting thing about being the president. Maybe somebody needs to explain to me why they say something, but I don't feel like I owe anybody an explanation."
Monday, November 24, 2008
Against the War in Iraq, 157 plus voices weren't enough
This is a man who was called naive, inexperienced, had no idea what he was talking about when he was talking about the war, yet here, 6 years ago he made some of the most profound statements I have ever seen. If only congress had listened to him, if only the American people had listened to him more and objected, instead of a rush to war in Iraq like we did.
How different would things be right now?? Would we have captured Bin Laden? Would be be in the financial shape we are in?? Would our military be in the shape it is in right now?? What would our standing in the world be?? So many questions, that can't be answered, because no one listened to this voice among others who said we shouldn't rush to war in Iraq.
No, he wasn't the only one. He wasn't even the loudest. I am not saying he was. Sen. Byrd, WV was another who said we shouldn't go to war in Iraq, along with 20 other Democrats, 1 Republican and 1 Independent that voted against the resolution. In the House there were 126 Dems, 6 Reps and 1 Ind. against. Barack was still an Illinois State Senator, he wasn't in the US Senate at the time so even though he made this great speech, he didn't get to vote.
I am just saying that he seems to have had some sense even then of the direction this war was going to take. He talks about just exactly what may happen, detailing things that are almost prophetic in nature. Here is a state senator, with no experience in foreign affairs, no military experience, unless you count what time he spent at his grandfathers knee possibly, yet he seems to know more about what is going to happen and tells us more than all the so called learned men in Washington DC. Military, Pentagon, White House Foggy Bottom and Capitol Hill combined. But, instead of listening to the 157 combined voices, in congress, Barack Obama and the voices of the people who protested against this war, the elected leaders ignored those voices and invaded Iraq anyway. How disastrous it has proven to be.
The cost, in money and in blood has been very high. The money is nothing, the blood is priceless. It can never be made up. Between what lives have been lost and what lives have been scarred forever, physically, mentally and emotionally. Families have been torn apart, some never to be whole again. What a price we as a country have paid. And here we are, 6 years later, still paying that price, hopefully, soon it will be over, if Barack does what he has said he will do and I feel he will, as soon as he possibly can. He will start to bring this mis-guided war to an honorable end. It can't be too soon for most people.
Remarks of Illinois State Sen. Barack Obama Against Going to War with Iraq
October 2, 2002
Good afternoon. Let me begin by saying that although this has been billed as an anti-war rally, I stand before you as someone who is not opposed to war in all circumstances. The Civil War was one of the bloodiest in history, and yet it was only through the crucible of the sword, the sacrifice of multitudes, that we could begin to perfect this union, and drive the scourge of slavery from our soil. I don't oppose all wars.
My grandfather signed up for a war the day after Pearl Harbor was bombed, fought in Patton's army. He saw the dead and dying across the fields of Europe; he heard the stories of fellow troops who first entered Auschwitz and Treblinka. He fought in the name of a larger freedom, part of that arsenal of democracy that triumphed over evil, and he did not fight in vain. I don't oppose all wars.
After September 11th, after witnessing the carnage and destruction, the dust and the tears, I supported this administration's pledge to hunt down and root out those who would slaughter innocents in the name of intolerance, and I would willingly take up arms myself to prevent such tragedy from happening again. I don't oppose all wars. And I know that in this crowd today, there is no shortage of patriots, or of patriotism.
What I am opposed to is a dumb war. What I am opposed to is a rash war. What I am opposed to is the cynical attempt by Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz and other armchair, weekend warriors in this administration to shove their own ideological agendas down our throats, irrespective of the costs in lives lost and in hardships borne.
What I am opposed to is the attempt by political hacks like Karl Rove to distract us from a rise in the uninsured, a rise in the poverty rate, a drop in the median income - to distract us from corporate scandals and a stock market that has just gone through the worst month since the Great Depression. That's what I'm opposed to. A dumb war. A rash war. A war based not on reason but on passion, not on principle but on politics. Now let me be clear - I suffer no illusions about Saddam Hussein. He is a brutal man. A ruthless man. A man who butchers his own people to secure his own power. He has repeatedly defied UN resolutions, thwarted UN inspection teams, developed chemical and biological weapons, and coveted nuclear capacity. He's a bad guy. The world, and the Iraqi people, would be better off without him.
But I also know that Saddam poses no imminent and direct threat to the United States, or to his neighbors, that the Iraqi economy is in shambles, that the Iraqi military a fraction of its former strength, and that in concert with the international community he can be contained until, in the way of all petty dictators, he falls away into the dustbin of history. I know that even a successful war against Iraq will require a US occupation of undetermined length, at undetermined cost, with undetermined consequences. I know that an invasion of Iraq without a clear rationale and without strong international support will only fan the flames of the Middle East, and encourage the worst, rather than best, impulses of the Arab world, and strengthen the recruitment arm of Al Qaeda. I am not opposed to all wars. I'm opposed to dumb wars.
So for those of us who seek a more just and secure world for our children, let us send a clear message to the President today. You want a fight, President Bush? Let's finish the fight with Bin Laden and Al Qaeda, through effective, coordinated intelligence, and a shutting down of the financial networks that support terrorism, and a homeland security program that involves more than color-coded warnings. You want a fight, President Bush?
Let's fight to make sure that the UN inspectors can do their work, and that we vigorously enforce a non-proliferation treaty, and that former enemies and current allies like Russia safeguard and ultimately eliminate their stores of nuclear material, and that nations like Pakistan and India never use the terrible weapons already in their possession, and that the arms merchants in our own country stop feeding the countless wars that rage across the globe. You want a fight, President Bush?
Let's fight to make sure our so-called allies in the Middle East, the Saudis and the Egyptians, stop oppressing their own people, and suppressing dissent, and tolerating corruption and inequality, and mismanaging their economies so that their youth grow up without education, without prospects, without hope, the ready recruits of terrorist cells. You want a fight, President Bush? Let's fight to wean ourselves off Middle East oil, through an energy policy that doesn't simply serve the interests of Exxon and Mobil. Those are the battles that we need to fight. Those are the battles that we willingly join. The battles against ignorance and intolerance. Corruption and greed. Poverty and despair.
The consequences of war are dire, the sacrifices immeasurable. We may have occasion in our lifetime to once again rise up in defense of our freedom, and pay the wages of war. But we ought not -- we will not -- travel down that hellish path blindly. Nor should we allow those who would march off and pay the ultimate sacrifice, who would prove the full measure of devotion with their blood, to make such an awful sacrifice in vain.
How different would things be right now?? Would we have captured Bin Laden? Would be be in the financial shape we are in?? Would our military be in the shape it is in right now?? What would our standing in the world be?? So many questions, that can't be answered, because no one listened to this voice among others who said we shouldn't rush to war in Iraq.
No, he wasn't the only one. He wasn't even the loudest. I am not saying he was. Sen. Byrd, WV was another who said we shouldn't go to war in Iraq, along with 20 other Democrats, 1 Republican and 1 Independent that voted against the resolution. In the House there were 126 Dems, 6 Reps and 1 Ind. against. Barack was still an Illinois State Senator, he wasn't in the US Senate at the time so even though he made this great speech, he didn't get to vote.
I am just saying that he seems to have had some sense even then of the direction this war was going to take. He talks about just exactly what may happen, detailing things that are almost prophetic in nature. Here is a state senator, with no experience in foreign affairs, no military experience, unless you count what time he spent at his grandfathers knee possibly, yet he seems to know more about what is going to happen and tells us more than all the so called learned men in Washington DC. Military, Pentagon, White House Foggy Bottom and Capitol Hill combined. But, instead of listening to the 157 combined voices, in congress, Barack Obama and the voices of the people who protested against this war, the elected leaders ignored those voices and invaded Iraq anyway. How disastrous it has proven to be.
The cost, in money and in blood has been very high. The money is nothing, the blood is priceless. It can never be made up. Between what lives have been lost and what lives have been scarred forever, physically, mentally and emotionally. Families have been torn apart, some never to be whole again. What a price we as a country have paid. And here we are, 6 years later, still paying that price, hopefully, soon it will be over, if Barack does what he has said he will do and I feel he will, as soon as he possibly can. He will start to bring this mis-guided war to an honorable end. It can't be too soon for most people.
Remarks of Illinois State Sen. Barack Obama Against Going to War with Iraq
October 2, 2002
Good afternoon. Let me begin by saying that although this has been billed as an anti-war rally, I stand before you as someone who is not opposed to war in all circumstances. The Civil War was one of the bloodiest in history, and yet it was only through the crucible of the sword, the sacrifice of multitudes, that we could begin to perfect this union, and drive the scourge of slavery from our soil. I don't oppose all wars.
My grandfather signed up for a war the day after Pearl Harbor was bombed, fought in Patton's army. He saw the dead and dying across the fields of Europe; he heard the stories of fellow troops who first entered Auschwitz and Treblinka. He fought in the name of a larger freedom, part of that arsenal of democracy that triumphed over evil, and he did not fight in vain. I don't oppose all wars.
After September 11th, after witnessing the carnage and destruction, the dust and the tears, I supported this administration's pledge to hunt down and root out those who would slaughter innocents in the name of intolerance, and I would willingly take up arms myself to prevent such tragedy from happening again. I don't oppose all wars. And I know that in this crowd today, there is no shortage of patriots, or of patriotism.
What I am opposed to is a dumb war. What I am opposed to is a rash war. What I am opposed to is the cynical attempt by Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz and other armchair, weekend warriors in this administration to shove their own ideological agendas down our throats, irrespective of the costs in lives lost and in hardships borne.
What I am opposed to is the attempt by political hacks like Karl Rove to distract us from a rise in the uninsured, a rise in the poverty rate, a drop in the median income - to distract us from corporate scandals and a stock market that has just gone through the worst month since the Great Depression. That's what I'm opposed to. A dumb war. A rash war. A war based not on reason but on passion, not on principle but on politics. Now let me be clear - I suffer no illusions about Saddam Hussein. He is a brutal man. A ruthless man. A man who butchers his own people to secure his own power. He has repeatedly defied UN resolutions, thwarted UN inspection teams, developed chemical and biological weapons, and coveted nuclear capacity. He's a bad guy. The world, and the Iraqi people, would be better off without him.
But I also know that Saddam poses no imminent and direct threat to the United States, or to his neighbors, that the Iraqi economy is in shambles, that the Iraqi military a fraction of its former strength, and that in concert with the international community he can be contained until, in the way of all petty dictators, he falls away into the dustbin of history. I know that even a successful war against Iraq will require a US occupation of undetermined length, at undetermined cost, with undetermined consequences. I know that an invasion of Iraq without a clear rationale and without strong international support will only fan the flames of the Middle East, and encourage the worst, rather than best, impulses of the Arab world, and strengthen the recruitment arm of Al Qaeda. I am not opposed to all wars. I'm opposed to dumb wars.
So for those of us who seek a more just and secure world for our children, let us send a clear message to the President today. You want a fight, President Bush? Let's finish the fight with Bin Laden and Al Qaeda, through effective, coordinated intelligence, and a shutting down of the financial networks that support terrorism, and a homeland security program that involves more than color-coded warnings. You want a fight, President Bush?
Let's fight to make sure that the UN inspectors can do their work, and that we vigorously enforce a non-proliferation treaty, and that former enemies and current allies like Russia safeguard and ultimately eliminate their stores of nuclear material, and that nations like Pakistan and India never use the terrible weapons already in their possession, and that the arms merchants in our own country stop feeding the countless wars that rage across the globe. You want a fight, President Bush?
Let's fight to make sure our so-called allies in the Middle East, the Saudis and the Egyptians, stop oppressing their own people, and suppressing dissent, and tolerating corruption and inequality, and mismanaging their economies so that their youth grow up without education, without prospects, without hope, the ready recruits of terrorist cells. You want a fight, President Bush? Let's fight to wean ourselves off Middle East oil, through an energy policy that doesn't simply serve the interests of Exxon and Mobil. Those are the battles that we need to fight. Those are the battles that we willingly join. The battles against ignorance and intolerance. Corruption and greed. Poverty and despair.
The consequences of war are dire, the sacrifices immeasurable. We may have occasion in our lifetime to once again rise up in defense of our freedom, and pay the wages of war. But we ought not -- we will not -- travel down that hellish path blindly. Nor should we allow those who would march off and pay the ultimate sacrifice, who would prove the full measure of devotion with their blood, to make such an awful sacrifice in vain.
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