Posted on 10/07/2005 9:35:36 AM PDT by West Coast Conservative
The White House has denied that US President George W. Bush said God told him to invade Iraq and Afghanistan, as a new BBC documentary is expected to reveal.
"That's absurd. He's never made such comments," White House spokesman Scott McClellan said Thursday.
The documentary series set to be broadcast later this month in Britain claims Bush made the claim when he met Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas and then-foreign minister Nabil Shaath in June 2003.
He also told them he had been ordered by God to create a Palestinian state, the ministers said.
Shaath, now the Palestinian information minister, said: "President Bush said to all of us: 'I'm driven with a mission from God'".
"'God would tell me, 'George, go and fight those terrorists in Afghanistan'.
"'And I did. And then God would tell me, 'George, go and end the tyranny in Iraq... ' And I did.
"'And now, again, I feel God's words coming to me, 'Go get the Palestinians their state and get the Israelis their security, and get peace in the Middle East'. And by God I'm gonna do it'," said Shaath.
Abbas, who was also at the meeting in the Egyptian resort of Sharm al-Sheikh, recalled how the president told him: "'I have a moral and religious obligation'".
"'So I will get you a Palestinian state.'"
The three-part series, "Elusive Peace: Israel and the Arabs", charts the attempts to bring peace to the Middle East, from former US president Bill Clinton's talks in 1999-2000 to Israel's withdrawal from the Gaza strip.
The series is due to begin airing Monday.
That's all I needed to know. This guy has no credibility.
Headline: WH denies Bush has stopped beating his wife. LOL.
Note to all from Gabriel, the messenger of God.
God advises Bush but God is not responsible for Bush.
What's absurd is that some moron at a press conference actually asked the question.
When the American troops entered Baghdad and did several drive-bys on Baghdad, the BBC reported that the American military was not being truthful.
The BBC even had a reporter claim that he was at the airport, and he hadn't seen the US troops; at the same time, American networks were showing footage of the embedded journos inside Baghdad, riding along with the troops.
The BBC is pure anti-Bush. The BBC is biased against the US in general. The BBC will give credence to any Baghdad Bob over the word of President Bush.
Replace the word "God" with "Allah" - it's more like an OBL/Zarq rant.
It's a sad commentary on the nutcase media that this story ever saw the light of day.
Headline: BUSH CALLS FOR COMPLETE U.S. BORDER CLOSING and expulsion of illegal immigrants!!!
That is equally impossible.
BUMP and PING
This is a two year old story recycled and hyped up even more from the original version here.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=310788
Last update - 02:45 24/06/2003
`Road map is a life saver for us,' PM Abbas tells Hamas
By Arnon Regular
Selected minutes acquired by Haaretz from one of last week's cease-fire negotiations between Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas and faction leaders from the Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the Popular and Democratic Fronts, reveal some of the factors at play behind the scenes in the effort to achieve a hudna.
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Abbas opened the session after hearing scathing criticism from faction leaders for his Aqaba speech in which he defined their activities as "terrorism." He began with a broad review of his two meetings with Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and the Aqaba summit.
"After seven days we did not reach agreement in Cairo on either the hudna or the united leadership. These points were later discussed in contacts in Gaza and in my view, the two points are the ones that should be on the table."
Abbas said: "The descriptions of what happened at Sharm el Sheikh and in Aqaba are vague in parts and in some parts are inventions, so this is an opportunity to talk about what happened since the PA accepted the road map on December 20," he said. "Despite our reservations we decided not to make them an obstacle, believing that the road map was a life saver for a tiger whose head was caught in the neck of the bottle."
Abbas said "we were told that [President George ] Bush is committed to the establishment of a viable Palestinian state beside the state of Israel, so based on our saying that we are ready to try that experiment, that is what was determined."
He explained to the faction leaders that with regard to the first phase of the road map, there was an agreement with the Americans that "the Palestinians would speak publicly about their commitments according to the map and then the Israelis would do the same thing." From there, he moved on to describe what happened at the summits. He said that Bush told the Arab leaders that he is fully committed to a solution based on his vision speech from June 24, 2002 and is ready to move forward "if there is help on your part."
"The Arabs supported him and I said we are ready to fulfill our commitments as they appear in the map," said Abbas. He said the discussion of the start of the implementation of the map dealt with Gaza, where he said that Palestinian Authority institutions "are 75 percent destroyed, while in the West Bank they are 100 percent destroyed."
He emphasized that at that stage he made clear to the participants at the Sharm summit that "we need time and capabilities to stand on our feet. And I explained that I had already spoken with Ariel Sharon about reaching a hudna between all the Palestinian factions." According to Abbas, "Bush exploded with anger and said `there can be no deals with terror groups.' We told him that they are part of our people and we cannot deal with them in any other way. We cannot begin with repression, under no circumstances, and I made clear to Bush that Sharon already agreed with that."
He said that he presented Bush with the deliberations about the hudna that he had with Sharon in Jerusalem after he was appointed prime minister. He explained to Bush that the dialogue between the Palestinian factions that began in Cairo and continued in Gaza were on the verge of completion. He said that Bush said "a case-fire is not the whole story" - Bush meant that a hudna is only the start of the process of disarming the groups.
Abbas outlined the political contacts during the Aqaba summit and said he added the prisoner issue at the three-way session with Bush and Sharon. "I told them the prisons are the election district for a campaign of calm in the Palestinian territories." He said Bush then turned to Sharon "with the following words, `look what you can profit from this, that holding onto the prisoners only creates tension.'"
Abbas said: "We were asked what we need if Israel withdraws and we said `that there not be raids, chases, assassinations or house demolitions, because that kind of activity will destroy everything.'"
Abbas tried to placate the faction leaders by telling them that Palestinian Security Minister Mohammed Dahlan had raised the exact same issues with John Wolf, the American monitor of the road map. He tried to explain that in the wake of the failed attempt on Abdel Aziz Rantisi's life, the PA was now insisting on an end to the assassinations.
He went on to explain his speech in Aqaba. "We did not speak of our rights but only of our commitments. Bush was impressed by that and mentioned the prisoners and settlements in his speech." On the matter of the right of return, Abbas said "that right appears in all the previous initiatives, and is not under discussion now. Bush asked, if that's the case, why mention the settlements now, and I told him the settlements are happening now. The Israelis use the excuse of natural growth and I told them that according to U.S. statistics, 33 percent of settlements are empty. We said the growth should happen westward, and not on our territory."
Abbas said that at Aqaba, Bush promised to speak with Sharon about the siege on Arafat. He said nobody can speak to or pressure Sharon except the Americans.
According to Abbas, immediately thereafter Bush said: "God told me to strike at al Qaida and I struck them, and then he instructed me to strike at Saddam, which I did, and now I am determined to solve the problem in the Middle East. If you help me I will act, and if not, the elections will come and I will have to focus on them."
Good find.
The BBC will stoop to nothing, to trash Bush and the US.
At least with Al-Jazeera, you know which side they're on, the BBC claims to be fair, but is just as biased.
"'And I did. And then God would tell me, 'George, go and end the tyranny in Iraq... ' And I did.
"'And now, again, I feel God's words coming to me, 'Go get the Palestinians their state and get the Israelis their security, and get peace in the Middle East'. And by God I'm gonna do it'," said Shaath.
Because, heaven knows, Islamists wouldn't even THINK of portraying W as a Christian Crusader unless it was true....
Even for the alleged "theocrat" Bush, it just doesn't sound at all like his way of talking or something he would say. Of course the truth doesn't matter to the worldwide Left and its favorite cause, the Palestinians.
..................
The media parroting palestinian lies is SOP. GWB’s actual comments after the Sharm el-Sheikh summit below. Apparently he did discuss the issue of God with the Crown Prince. Moral of the story, as a Palestinian White House visit is approaching, be careful what you say in front of these people, they lie and distort on a regular basis.
THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary
(Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt)
June 3, 2003
REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT AT MULTILATERAL MEETING WITH ARAB LEADERS
Movenpick Conference Center Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt 1:50 P.M. (L)
PRESIDENT BUSH: Well, Mr. President, thank you very much for hosting this important meeting. I want to thank the leaders for coming, Your Majesties and His Royal Highness. Prime Minister Abbas, I want to thank you and your delegation for coming, as well.
I'm the kind of person who, when I say something, I mean it. I mean that the world needs to have a Palestinian state that is free and at peace. And, therefore, my government will work with all parties concerned to achieve that vision.
I believe now is the time to work to achieve the vision. All of us have responsibilities to achieve the vision. You, sir, have got a responsibility, and you've assumed it. I want to work with you, as do the other leaders here.
We must not allow few people, a few killers, a few terrorists to destroy the dreams and the hopes of the many. Israel has got responsibilities. Israel must deal with the settlements. Israel must make sure there's a continuous (*contiguous) territory that the Palestinians can call home.
The leaders at the table have got a responsibility. The biggest responsibility that they have, it seems like to me, is to fight off any source of funding to terror; is to prevent the terrorists from gaining a foothold. I know that is the commitment of the leaders here, I have talked to them about that. It's in their own self-interests to fight off terror. It's in their own self-interests to enable the Palestinian state to emerge.
So this is an historic meeting. It's the beginning of a long process and a tough process. But no matter how difficult it is, you have my commitment that I will expend the energy and effort necessary to move the process forward.
I believe that, as I told the Crown Prince, the Almighty God has endowed each individual on the face of the earth with -- that expects each person to be treated with dignity. This is a universal call. It's the call of all religions, that each person must be free and treated with respect. And it is with that call that I feel passionate about the need to move forward, so that the world can be more peaceful, more free and more hopeful.
Mr. President, thank you for convening this meeting. Tomorrow we've got important meetings, as well. This is the beginning of a process where all of us must not allow the few to destroy the hopes of the many.
May God bless our work. (Applause.)
END 1:54 P.M.
Bush claimed God told him to invade Iraq, Afghanistan: BBCGod told me to invade Iraq, Bush tells Palestinian ministers
White House denies Bush God claim [The White House has dismissed as "absurd"....]
..................
The media parroting palestinian lies is SOP. GWB’s actual comments after the Sharm el-Sheikh summit below. Apparently he did discuss the issue of God with the Crown Prince. Moral of the story, as a Palestinian White House visit is approaching, be careful what you say in front of these people, they lie and distort on a regular basis.
THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary
(Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt)
June 3, 2003
REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT AT MULTILATERAL MEETING WITH ARAB LEADERS
Movenpick Conference Center Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt 1:50 P.M. (L)
PRESIDENT BUSH: Well, Mr. President, thank you very much for hosting this important meeting. I want to thank the leaders for coming, Your Majesties and His Royal Highness. Prime Minister Abbas, I want to thank you and your delegation for coming, as well.
I'm the kind of person who, when I say something, I mean it. I mean that the world needs to have a Palestinian state that is free and at peace. And, therefore, my government will work with all parties concerned to achieve that vision.
I believe now is the time to work to achieve the vision. All of us have responsibilities to achieve the vision. You, sir, have got a responsibility, and you've assumed it. I want to work with you, as do the other leaders here.
We must not allow few people, a few killers, a few terrorists to destroy the dreams and the hopes of the many. Israel has got responsibilities. Israel must deal with the settlements. Israel must make sure there's a continuous (*contiguous) territory that the Palestinians can call home.
The leaders at the table have got a responsibility. The biggest responsibility that they have, it seems like to me, is to fight off any source of funding to terror; is to prevent the terrorists from gaining a foothold. I know that is the commitment of the leaders here, I have talked to them about that. It's in their own self-interests to fight off terror. It's in their own self-interests to enable the Palestinian state to emerge.
So this is an historic meeting. It's the beginning of a long process and a tough process. But no matter how difficult it is, you have my commitment that I will expend the energy and effort necessary to move the process forward.
I believe that, as I told the Crown Prince, the Almighty God has endowed each individual on the face of the earth with -- that expects each person to be treated with dignity. This is a universal call. It's the call of all religions, that each person must be free and treated with respect. And it is with that call that I feel passionate about the need to move forward, so that the world can be more peaceful, more free and more hopeful.
Mr. President, thank you for convening this meeting. Tomorrow we've got important meetings, as well. This is the beginning of a process where all of us must not allow the few to destroy the hopes of the many.
May God bless our work. (Applause.)
END 1:54 P.M.
Bush claimed God told him to invade Iraq, Afghanistan: BBCGod told me to invade Iraq, Bush tells Palestinian ministers
White House denies Bush God claim [The White House has dismissed as "absurd"....]
I believe that, as I told the Crown Prince, the Almighty God has endowed each individual on the face of the earth with -- that expects each person to be treated with dignity. This is a universal call. It's the call of all religions, that each person must be free and treated with respect. And it is with that call that I feel passionate about the need to move forward, so that the world can be more peaceful, more free and more hopeful.
Worth repeating. Thanks for clarifying this.
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