Bush: Iraqi prisoner abuse on Arab TV
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| Wed, 05-05-2004 - 10:17am |
Bush to address Iraqi prisoner abuse on Arab TV.
President Bush will give interviews to two Arab television networks Wednesday about reports of U.S. military personnel abusing Iraqi prisoners, the White House said.
White House spokesman Scott McClellan said the 10-minute interviews with Al-Hurra, a U.S.-sponsored network, and Al Arabiya will take place about 10 a.m. ET (1400 GMT) in the Map Room at the White House.
"This is an opportunity for the president to speak directly to the people of Arab nations and let them know that the images that we all have seen are shameful and unacceptable," McClellan told reporters during a Bush campaign tour.
Referring to photographs that have surfaced showing Iraqi prisoners being abused McClellan said, "The images do not represent what America stands for, nor do they represent the high standards of conduct that the military is committed to uphold. The U.S. believes in treating all people with dignity and respect."
Asked why Bush would not meet with the Arab network Al-Jazeera, McClellan would only say the other two networks "reach a wide range of people in the Middle East."
McClellan said the actions of the accused soldiers at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq "do not represent what 99 percent of the men and women in the military stand for." (Full story)
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said Tuesday that he would take "all measures necessary" to ensure that abuse of detainees in Iraq "does not happen again."
Rumsfeld defended the Defense Department's handling of the matter in the face of congressional criticism, noting that a criminal investigation by the Army was under way and publicly disclosed three months before what he called "deeply disturbing" photographs were broadcast last week.
"This is a serious problem, and it's something the department is addressing," he said at a Pentagon news briefing. "The system works. The system works."
Rumsfeld said the criminal investigation was one of six launched since January.
More..............
http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/05/05/iraq.abuse.main/index.html


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If straight talk of savagery offends you, if you believe in ethnic and
gender diversity but not diversity of thought or if you think there is
an acceptable gray area between good and evil, then turn to the funny
pages, and take the children, too. This piece is not for you.
We published pictures Thursday of burnt American corpses hanging from
an Iraqi bridge behind a mob of grinning Muslims. Some readers didn't
like it.
Mothers said it frightened their children. A woman who works with
Muslim physicians thought it might offend or endanger them.
Well, we sure don't want to frighten, offend or endanger anybody, do
we? That's just too much diversity to handle. I mean, somebody might
get hurt.
We could fill the newspaper every morning with mobs of fanatical
Muslims. They can't get along with their neighbors on much of the
planet: France,Chechnya, Bosnia, Indonesia, Spain, Morocco, India,
Tunisia, Somalia,etc. etc. etc. Can anybody name three ongoing world
conflicts in which Muslims are not involved? Today, where there is war,
there are fanatical Muslims.
We might quibble about who started what conflicts, but look at the
sheer number of them.
One thing is sure. Muslim killers started the one we are in now when
they slaughtered more that 3,000 people, including fellow Muslims, in
New York City.
Madeleine Albright, the former secretary of state and reckless
appeaser who helped get us into this mess, said last week Muslims still
resent the Crusades. Well, Madam Albright, if Westerners were not such
a forgiving people, we might resent them too.
Let's recap the Crusades. Muslims invaded Europe, and when they
reached sufficient numbers, they imposed their intolerant religion upon
Westerners by force. Christian monarchs drove them back and took the
battle to their homeland. The fight lasted a couple of centuries, and
we bottled them up for 1,000 years.
Now, a millennium later, Muslims have expanded forth again. Ask
France. Ask England. Ask Manhattan. Two-and-a-half years ago fanatical
Muslims laid siege to us. We woke up to the obvious. Our president
announced it would be a very long war, then took the battle to the
Islamic homeland. Sound Familiar?
Let's consider the concept of a "long war.! " Last time it was 200
years, give or take. Anybody catch Lord of the Rings? You know, the
good part, the part that wasn't fiction, the part that drew us to the
books and movies because it was the truest part: the titanic struggle
between good and evil, between freedom and enslavement, between the
individual and the state, between the celebration of life and the
worshipping of death.
That's the fight we are in, and it never ends. It just has peaks and
valleys.
There may be a silent majority of peaceful Muslims - some live here -
but that did not save 3,000 people in the World Trade Center, the
million gassed and butchered in the Middle East, the tens of thousands
slain in Easter Europe and Asia, the hundreds blown to bits in the West
Bank and Spain, or the four Americans shot, burned and hung like sausage
over the Euphrates as a fanatical minority of Muslims did the joyful
dance of death.
Maybe we are so tolerant, we are so bent on "diversity," we are so
nonjudgmental, we are so wrapped up in our six-packs and ballgames that
our brains have drained to our bulbous behinds. Maybe we're so addled
on Ritalin we wouldn't know which end of a gun to hold. Maybe we need a
new drug advertised on TV every three minutes, one that would help us
grow a backbone.
It doesn't take a Darwin to figure out that in this world the
smartest,the fastest, the strongest, and the most committed always win.
No exceptions.
Look at your spouse and children. Look at yourself in the mirror.
Then look at the pictures from the paper last Thursday. You better look
at them. Those are the people out to kill you.
Who do you think will win? You? Or them? Think you can take your
ball and go home and they will leave you alone? Read a little history.
Start with last week, last month, last year, and every other year back
for half a century. Then go back a thousand years. Nobody hides from
this fight.
To Read More: http://www.geocities.com/villages123/fanatic.html
categories, and what category does beheading fall
under?
over
I won't address all of the Anti-American propaganda. You and I disagree. I love and appreciate my freedoms here in America. You are free not to.
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