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A third term for Bill Clinton?
Scripps Howard News Service
Published: May 29, 2003, 11:49:00 AM PDT
http://www.modbee.com/24hour/opinions/story/902299p-6283958c.html
Rumors Spread About Bill Clinton Running for Mayor of New York
VOA News
New York
13 Jun 2003, 20:46 UTC
AP
Former President, Bill Clinton
New York City Mayor, Michael Bloomberg, says former President Bill Clinton is welcome to run for his job, but adds the ex-White House resident would have a hard time beating him.
Mr. Clinton has not said he wants to run. Mr. Bloomberg was responding to media reports that the idea is being considered.
The idea first surfaced in the June issue of Washington Monthly magazine, based on sources referred to as Mr. Clinton's friends. Newspaper columnists in New York and Washington picked up on the idea, noting that despite several obstacles, such as Mr. Clinton not actually living in the city, the idea has appeal.
They point out that New York has a long history of colorful mayors, a description seldom applied to Mr. Bloomberg.
New York Times metro columnist Joyce Purnick writes, "The mere idea of a Bill Cinton candidacy really does fuel the image machine. Thoughts of fun again at City Hall."
The next mayoral election in New York City is in 2005.
A new Saddam Hussein is born ... in Israel
After one of the world’s most repressive regimes came to an end in April, Saddam quickly became the most unpopular name in Iraq.
But in Israel, a young couple has resorted to legal action to name its baby after the Iraqi dictator.
Media reports on Thursday said Israeli Interior Minister Avraham Poraz reversed a decision banning the Arab Israeli couple from naming their new-born boy Saddam Hussein.
Anwar and Muna Zabarka had been told Israeli law prohibits people from giving their children names that are offensive to the public, but the minister cited freedom of speech. Little Saddam was born shortly after US-led troops ousted his namesake, long considered the biggest threat to Israel. —AFP
The war’s not over, boys
Jun 13th 2003
From The Economist Global Agenda
Despite the declaration on May 1st that major combat activities in Iraq were over, coalition troops continue to be the target of attacks. Will the aggressive counter-attacks launched this week snuff out the remaining resistance?
http://www.economist.com/agenda/displayStory.cfm?story_id=1855122
U.S. attack threatens to create thousands of new Iraqi enemies
By Tom Lasseter and Drew Brown
Knight Ridder Newspapers
Posted on Fri, Jun. 13, 2003
RAWAH, Iraq - Hassan Ibrahim walked the narrow space between the fresh graves and shook his head. There were 78, some of them packed with more than one body, with rocks as markers. The air stank of death. The names of the dead were written on paper and folded into soda bottles stuck in the ground.
"This town was safe before the Americans come here and made a lot of blood," said Ibrahim. "Is this the democracy they were talking about?"
The graves were all that remained after U.S. forces struck a suspected terrorist training camp five and a half miles from town Thursday, raking the earth with missiles and machine-gun fire.
Although the attack was a military success, it threatens to create thousands of new enemies in this small farming city on the banks of the Euphrates River. In a place where everyone knows each other and the streets are quiet after dark, the number of corpses and the havoc of battle could have unintended consequences.
"If I get a chance, I would shoot an American, because they are now my enemies," said Marwan Alrawi, a member of a family that owns farmland throughout the area. "Before this, 1 of 10,000 Rawah citizens would fight the Americans. Now, more than half would."
The backlash highlights the increasingly difficult task of crushing Baath Party loyalists and what U.S. officials say are a growing number of foreign fighters while also winning the hearts and minds of ordinary Iraqis.
The raid was part of some of the heaviest fighting in Iraq since President Bush declared the war over on May 1. Most of it has taken place in the "Triangle," an area that extends from Baghdad, Iraq, in the east to Tikrit, Iraq, in the north, and then west almost to Syria. The area, made up predominately of conservative Sunni Muslims, has been a recent flashpoint of attacks on American troops.
Attacks continued early Friday when a group of Iraqi gunmen ambushed a column of tanks from the Army's 4th Infantry Division with rocket-propelled grenades near Balad, Iraq, about 50 miles north of Baghdad. U.S. tanks, armored personnel carriers and attack helicopters returned fire, killing 27 attackers, spokesmen at the U.S. Central Command said.
Central Command officials said the U.S. military offensives in recent days are part of "a continued effort to eradicate Baath party loyalists, paramilitary groups and other subversive elements."
Speaking to Pentagon reporters in a teleconference on Friday, Lt. Gen. David McKiernan, the top allied commander in Iraq, declined to say much about the Rawah raid. He did not say who the suspected terrorists were.
"I will simply tell you that it was a camp area that was confirmed with bad guys and specifically who the bad guys are will be determined as we exploit the site," he said.
While many in Rawah, about four hours west of Baghdad, said the people killed were fighters from Syria and Iraq, the death toll outraged them.
Villagers said nearly 80 fighters were killed in the raid. Maj. Brad Lowell, a spokesman for the U.S. Central Command, said the number of casualties couldn't be confirmed.
"The command has always stayed away from specific body counts," Lowell said. "The bottom line is if we're in that area and we've put this type of combat power there, then it's obvious there's some significant concentration of enemy there."
A Pentagon official said information remains sketchy about the nationalities of those killed in the raid. "Some Syrians were among them," said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. "But there were other nationalities as well."
Saleh said rumors in the small, close-knit community say that the men at the desert camp were training to be fighters of some sort. They met small groups of the men when they came to market for food.
"They were from Syria, Jordan, and one was even from France," said Mohammad Mohammad, a man sitting next to Saleh. "Of course they were going to kill the Americans, everyone hates the Americans."
In Rawah yesterday, the only smiles were on the faces of people who showed a visitor the wreckage of a U.S. Army Apache helicopter, apparently one from the 101st Airborne Division that the military announced was shot down Thursday by "irregular forces." The two U.S. crewmen were not hurt in the crash, and were rescued.
Scraps of the helicopter were jumbled in a dirt pile pushed by American bulldozers that left town on Army trucks.
The same bulldozers, residents said, pushed dirt and rocks over the bodies of five men near the helicopter crash site. There were tracks leading to the location they named, and pieces of clothing and the smell of dead bodies in and around the recently moved rocks.
The men buried by the bulldozers had been in a truck that sat nearby, burned-out and full of holes. It was the men in the truck who shot down the helicopter with a rocket-propelled grenade, said Mahdi Saleh, a local electrician who, awakened by the firefight, drove out to a hilltop that looked toward the action.
From a purely military standpoint, the operation was an unqualified success. McKiernan indicated that his troops had the element of surprise. American jets bombed the camp before special operations forces and troops from the 101st Airborne went in, according to Pentagon officials.
"We struck it very lethally, and we're exploiting whatever intelligence value we can get from that site for future operations," McKiernan said.
The camp that was hit in Rawah sat on a small strip of land between a row of reeds in a creek bed and a cliff in the middle of the desert, reachable only by following the small piles of rocks left by locals as sign posts.
In what remained of it, there was a man's thumb sitting on the ground beside a charred straw mat. Several yards away, there was an arm, cut off slightly above the elbow, lying not far from the charred remains of a Koran. At least six broken pieces of wooden boards marked graves for body parts that did not make it to the graveyard.
Locals said that after the fighting was done, they followed the smell of smoke, and their memory of where the bright flashes had been, and loaded dozens of charred bodies - "they were like burned meat," one man said - into the backs of pickup trucks.
In the back of one of the trucks were Adidas and Nike running shoes.
Among the items at the camp were empty boxes that once held Soviet AK-47 rifle ammunition and rocket-propelled grenades. There were mounds of spent bullets, as well as backpacks, the same ones used by the Iraqi military, with tube-shaped pockets used to carry RPG rounds.
A few people maintained that the men at the camp were either Iraqis who meant only to protect the townspeople from looters, or men who were using the hillside as a rock quarry.
"The Americans are worse than Saddam: He killed with a gun, the Americans kill with a bomb," said Ahmed Alsalam, a local farmer. "They have made their own mass grave here."
---
About KRWashington.com Knight Ridder Copyright
Sharpton would have a better shot at NYC Mayor that Thurmond.
Imagine Thrumond in NY! ??? Unthinkable! :)
Beats me - OIL? Dominance? Who knows, but nothing would surprise me!...
Actually Silk Road Tours travels to Bekka. It looks like a pretty cool place.
But they probably hate us in Bekka too, who doesn't??... :)
http://www.silkroadtours.co.uk/lebanon.html
There's lots of cool places we could go if we weren't so universally hated. Heck, I don't even want to go to Mexico or Canada anymore. It's tough when you're not comfortable with the next door neighbors....
Fortunately, we're still welcome in New England! :))
Who knows what he might have thought... But when the Prez speaks to Congress, high standards of truthfulness and veracity of info provided are expected and implied.
Obviously, I'm not saying Saddam was a nice guy, and I'm not saying he didn't deserve to be taken out. But it is our Constitutional system that separates us from the lunatics killing others in obscure parts of the world. And the Constitution enables our "way of life" and our freedoms. Before we support and defend others in obscure parts, we need to support and defend our own US Constitution, our freedoms and our "way of life".
Bush is always saying the terrorists hate and want to attack our "way of life". If Bush breeched the Constitution by lying, fudging or embellishing, THAT is an attack on our way of life as well - a SERIOUS attack!! Because it is an attack on the Constitutional system that enables our "way of life", our freedoms, prosperity, etc.....
This is a very serious situation, brain... But you already knew that... :)
Go to Bekka Valley?? Should I call my travel agent??..
No -- because I question Bush's motives which I suspect were completely self serving. If there's a humanitarian benefit, that's great. But the political and humanitarian benefit remain to be seen...
I was unaware of that, or the specifics of that particular declaration of offensive. What's you're point?
Disgusting, I know... But Bush could have pursued regime change on the grounds of Saddam as a war criminal and guilty of atrocious crimes against humanity. There's an international protocol if Bush chose that option. He did not. He chose WMD?? Why?
I'm not denying any of this. But the Prez can not bring troops to war without Congressional approval. There are questions regarding the veracity of info supplied to Congress. Do you "deny" the US Constitution??
No I haven't seen it. I've seen snippets from one gov source or another. And, of course, there's all the absolute and grandiose statements made by Admin personnel about WMD now MIA...
``The human rights situation in Sudan is not marketable to the American people.''
-Secretary of State Madeleine Albright-Sept. 15, 1999 (Village Voice April 25, 2000)
The case Bush made to Congress, the American people and the international community may have been disingenuous, an embellishment or a flat out lie. The truth will be known eventually...
Genocide of Sudanese Christians of Little Interest to A Prosperous America
By Alicia Colon
Rightgrrl Contributor
September 12, 2000
``The human rights situation in Sudan is not marketable to the American people.''
-Secretary of State Madeleine Albright-Sept. 15, 1999 (Village Voice April 25, 2000)
http://www.rightgrrl.com/2000/colon/gen.html
What does this say about us as human beings??.....
NO! eom
I'd support sending US troops to end mass murder. Millions have died already. The US, as leader of the free world and only remaining super power, can also lead by doing what is right, and moral. Imo, it looks like Iraq was a farce - another gov scam. And We the People still have no idea why we attacked, the REAL reason for the pre-emptive strike...
You got that right!!
"what is in the news the most often is not the worst news"
Yes, I would! But oil politics precludes US military action. The atrocities have been going on for a long time. And no one really gives a darn about a bunch of African Christians anyway.... http://www.religioustolerance.org is an excellent site! :)
Government-sponsored genocide in Sudan:
About 75% of the people of Sudan are Sunni Muslim. Most of the rest are Animists and Christians. The predominately Muslim-controlled government in the north of the country has waged a civil war in Sudan since 1983. On 2000-MAY-02, Newsroom 1 wrote that the conflict has resulted in the deaths of about 2 million people, "mostly Christians and followers of animist religions. While the conflict has many contributing causes, religious factors are the key. 2
Some developments in the civil war:
2000-MAY-1: A panel commissioned by the United States to monitor religious freedom issued its first report...calling for measures to be taken against China and Sudan if they fail to improve their treatment of religious believers. The "Reading Room" section of the web site of the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom contains the full report. 2 The Commission designated China and Sudan as "countries of particular concern:" The Commission proposes "a comprehensive 12-month plan to significantly strengthen the United State's response to this crisis." They also suggest that both aid and sanctions be increased. The Commission also expressed its concern over freedom of religion in Russia, and human rights abuses against the Muslim population of Chechnya (see below).
2001-JUN: ReligionToday reported that the U.S. House of Representatives approved H.R. 2052, the Sudan Peace Act, by a vote of 422-2. The bill condemns human rights abuses in Sudan, and the use of food as a weapon while encouraging support for viable civil authorities and institutions in non-government-controlled areas. Additionally, the measure condemns slavery and the use of enslaving parties as a means of ethnic cleansing. The Senate passed the bill in 2001-JUL as S-180. 3 The bill would have:
Condemned slavery and human rights abuses on both sides of the conflict.
Supported an internationally sanctioned peace process.
Provides US diplomatic support
Placed multilateral pressure on the Government of Sudan, through the United Nations.
Required reporting on: oil field exploration, a major fund-base for the Government of Sudan; financing by US citizens; extent of bombing; extent of humanitarian relief actually getting to its intended recipients.
Increased relief through more organizations, and a plan for delivering relief in the event of a ban by the US Government of Sudan. 4
According to GetActive, the bill died because the Republican Senate leadership did not allow the Sudan Peace Act to go to conference committee. 5
2001-AUG: OFFnews.info reported: "The reality is that more than two million Christians and animists in southern Sudan have been systematically murdered, raped, brutalized, sold into slavery and banished from their homes by forces loyal to the government of Sudan. This 18-year old genocidal campaign was spawned by the determination of the Islamic supremacists in Khartoum to liquidate what they call dhimmis (or infidels). In recent years, however, the original justification for this bloodletting has been powerfully reinforced -- and its execution underwritten -- by an insidious economic development: The Christians and animists happen to live in areas rich with oil deposits. As a result, foreign oil companies (U.S. entities are barred from doing business in Sudan) have a shared interest with the Sudanese government in getting access to such areas so as to explore and exploit their reserves. The Khartoum regime clears promising locations of the local population -- either by killing them outright, enslaving them or terrifying them into fleeing. In return, oil concerns like Talisman Energy of Canada and China National Petroleum Company provide cash flow to an otherwise impoverished government, which has stated publicly that these oil-generated proceeds are enabling it to wage war in southern Sudan." 3
2001-SEP: President Bush appointed Senator John Danforth as Special Envoy to the Sudan. 6
2002-MAY-16, the president asked Danforth to continue to serve as a peace envoy. 7
2002-OCT-7: The U.S. House of Representatives passed a replacement bill by a vote of 359-8. It passed the Senate unanimously on OCT-9. President Bush signed the Sudan Peace Act into law on 2002-OCT-21. The Act requires the President to certify every six months that the Sudanese government and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) are negotiating in good faith. "If the President finds that the Khartoum government is not negotiating in good faith, or has been interfering in aid efforts, it can seek sanctions from the United Nations that include an arms embargo, actively oppose loans and credit and take steps to deny oil revenue." 8
The reaction of the Sudanese government was negative. "President and Chairman of the ruling National Congress Umar Al-Bashir was quoted as saying that the act undermines the peace efforts in his nation. 'Why should such an act be issued at a time when we are negotiating and when we have overcome major obstacles? ...We are saying that the objective of this act is to ensure that the people in Sudan do not achieve peace'." 8
Copyright © 2002 by Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance
http://www.religioustolerance.org/geno_su.htm
Genocide:
http://www.genocidewatch.org/docs.htm
But fear not, Bush has no intention of intervening in this region...
Today's despots make for tomorrow's "Shock & Awe". Good "theater" seats for All American Couch Potatoes..
And a god send for Ol' Rupert and his Media Machine! :)
Who said the atrocities were being perpetrated by America?...
It's a gov sanctioned program of Christian genocide by Moslem militants. I think it was CNN broadcasting a long overdue segment on the 'Killing Fields in Africa'. My point was, the world including the US is silent, again. And if we claim to be a humanitarian nation or champion of human rights, how can we remain silent? How can we do nothing, again?
Killing fields, a program of genocide that has killed millions - today. And no one cares. One of the big 3 cable news outlets is doing a special tonight - I think. Attention is long overdue. The atrocities have been going on a long time. It's tough to assume US foriegn policy has much to do with humanitarian concerns.
I hope I'm not totally "uneducated", but I'm not following you. I was referring to despots in the ME. What about Stalin?
Educated about what?? There's being massacred -- a holocaust!
Amazing, isn't it!! We create despots, only to take 'em out in "Shock & Awe" decades later... What a world!
People are being slaughtered today. And we send money? Couldn't we do more??...
We are "humanitarians" of convenience??...
edit: Contributions to charitable, tax exempt orgs are deductable. But more favorable treatment could be adopted, like tax credits, or more favorable deduction formulas... There are ways, but Bush prefers direct funding. Don't you find that interesting??..
And in Africa, the worst atrocities are being committed today. Where is the moral outrage on that one??
If we are great humanitarians, why do we do nothing? The US and the world is silent...
Why is that, if we are so concerned with human rights??..
Maybe the real issue is OIL??...
Are you? You appear to be...
I'm not talking about "tax relief". I'm talking about more favorable tax treatment of charitable contributions,
ie better deductions....
The Tax Code could be changed to allow more favorable tax treatment of charitable contributions, but Bush is advocating direct public funding of "faith based initiatives". One can only wonder WHY??..
"You folks" being on the way right, ultra-conservatives, is what I meant.
Great point on the merits of polling. But I think Americans have become desensitised to dishonesty, in business and gov. Unfortunately, dishonesty has become "normal".... Business lies, gov lies, blah, blah, blah... Everyone lies! For the right, as long as homosexuals and feminists don't lie, it's all A-Okay. Heck the right is defending Bush's case for war before the real truth is known or any WMD are found -- they are fiercely defending the Prez -- as great "patriots, I guess... :)
I thought you folks hated Clinton?
You said...
"that is what they do,spread the Gospel"
And that's fine... But should they receive direct public funding to "spread the Gospel" to "the people in their community"?? That's not Constitutional.
Why do you favor direct public funding rather that a more favorable tax treatment??...
Should we do away with the Constitutional Separation of Church and State, in your opinion??