Ad depicts Rumsfeld, Saddam - Anti-American Berkely Group Idiot Alert!

Oakland Tribune ^ | 5/15/03

[areafiftyone]

A Berkeley-based peace group intends to place advertisements depicting U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld shaking hands with Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein in mass transit systems from coast to coast. The photo is real -- it was taken Dec. 20, 1983, when Rumsfeld, then a special envoy for the Reagan administration, visited Saddam to discuss U.S. support for Iraq in its war with Iran. California Peace Action and its sister Peace Education Fund incorporated the photo into an ad emblazoned with the words, "Who are we arming now?

"U.S. troops die for the failures of policy makers," the ad says. "The war in Iraq marked the seventh consecutive time that American troops have been sent into combat against a regime the U.S. had previously backed. We aided both Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein. While American soldiers and innocent civilians paid the price, policy makers avoided accountability."

The ads say elected officials have betrayed America's core values of human rights and democracy, and must stop its current arms sales to dictatorships and other nations that abuse their citizens' human rights.

California Peace Action Executive Director Peter Ferenbach said Monday that his group had collected about $41,000 since launching its fund-raising appeal five days earlier. It will cost about $55,000 to place the ads in BART stations and in the mass transit systems of Washington, D.C., Boston and Chicago, as well as more detailed full-page ads in the New York Times and Los Angeles Times.

Ferenbach said the ads are meant to show that the war against Iraq is "symptomatic of a larger problem," and that "we don't seem to be learning from this lesson at all."

It is understandable if people are disturbed by the photo, he said. "They should find it upsetting. On some level, there's the old adage that 'the truth hurts.'"

[enuu]

That's Hillary and Mrs. Yassir Arafat, at their meeting in Paris, kissing each other on the cheek. Sooo continental, darling, isn't it tres chic?

[Paul Atreides]

That photo is significant in that Ms. Arafat launched into an anti-Jew speech immediately after that smooch with Her Thighness. Her Thighness just sat there throughout the entire rant.