Bush "War On Terrorism" Now a Big Joke: "Arafat Is Not A Terrorist" (Japanese News Report Breaking)

In Japanese (Kyodo News, Tokyo) ^ | 2 April 2002 Japan Time | Kyodo News Service

[AmericanInTokyo]

Breaking. Japanese headling says "USA Government Does Not Consider Arafat a Terorrist"

Briefly attributes the stated policy to a 'high-level press spokesman' in the Bush Administration. (Probably Fleischer).

Short dispatch in Japanese just now. Breaking fast.

[luvzhottea]

Bush is consistent and looking out for OUR best interests.
Just because he isn't bowing to lobbyists he is taking heat
Sat, Mar. 30, 2002

UN - including US - votes for Israel to back off
GERALD NADLER
Associated Press Writer


UNITED NATIONS - The United States joined other U.N. Security Council members Saturday in adopting a resolution that calls on Israel to withdraw its troops from Palestinian cities, including Ramallah, where Yasser Arafat's headquarters is under siege.

The 14-0 vote, at 4:30 a.m. EST, capped a marathon emergency session called at the request of the Palestinians. It came a day after Israel declared the Palestinian leader an enemy and, vowing to isolate him, launched an extensive military campaign in response to a series of attacks on Israeli civilians.

It was the second time in a month that the United States, Israel's closest ally, approved a Mideast resolution, after years of abstaining and vetoing Council measures critical of Israel. On March 13, the United States voted with the council to approve a resolution calling for a Palestinian state.

[VRWC_minion]

You are exactly right that Bush is ignoring his own standard for "harboring terrorists."

I believe the main reason is because the US at some point will be called on to broker some sort of deal. To the extent we take sides the less effective we will be.

So, Bush is in a corner that he has to leave alone. On the one hand I believe and rational person would see his original words are correct but on the other as a potential judge in the roll of brokering a deal he must assume as nuetral a posture as possible.

[TexKat]

To your #19

While watching this all day, it appears to me something happened today that we are not privy of yet and if we ever will be, that has made Bush say some different things.

Arafat is not a terrorist, Arafat should not be sent into exile.

Also Arafat, Pa, PLO is behind the flyers that are circulating over there informing the Palestian people to kill the Jews and Americans. Could it be that the Saddam threat of non-supply of oil has Bush change of heart.

[Governor StrangeReno]

The house of Saud run US foreign policy is getting increasingly rediculous as is Bush's demeaner his white house feed the chooks sessions these days explaining these things taking a definate Sesame street quality as if he's addressing kindergarten children or retards.

[TexKat]

In Bush's response to the journalist, he said at one point that Arafat had agreed to the Tenet plan. And then Bush said it was his hope that Arafat would accept the Tenet plan.

Please explain the difference in agreeing to and accepting this plan.

[veronica]

LOL. I can see how Bush is 'making Israel get out of Ramallah' (not.) :)

And he knows Arafat is a terrorist, he's just giving the old terrorist some more rope...before he gives him the heave-ho!!!!

[TexKat]

Your #88

Duh!!!

[Scholastic]

bump

[Ronin]

Bush made a fatal error when he refused to call Arafat a terrorist. Of course Arafat is a terrorist! He has always BEEN a terrorist. Terrorism is actually all he knows because as a national leader he has been nothing but a corrupt failure from the beginning!

I am major pissed off about this. I read Sharon's speech on the train this morning and I agreed with it 100 percent.

At best, Bush is being wishy-washy at a time when I think that most Americans are solidly behind Isreal (media types and Hollywood libs excepted). At worst he is being willfully untruthful.

We should be supporting Isreal 100 percent here. There is no difference between Arafat and Bin Laden. There is no difference between the suicide bombers in Isreal and the fanatics who blew up the WTC.

[TexKat]

Saddam has already declared war. He has already sided with Arafat and his paying the families of the suicide bombers. He is helping to push this war.

[DoughtyOne]

To: DoughtyOne

Nope. Now you have lost me for a serious discussion. Once you say he is the same as Gore, I immediately hit the ignore button.

148 posted on 4/1/02 2:24 PM Pacific by Miss Marple

And that's your right.  So you may not wish to answer whether the following actions might have been approved by Al Gore.  You may not like the answer.

  1. Announced that Bill Clinton's actions would not be investigated by his Justice Department
  2. Announced that Bill Clinton would be given veto over the release of his Presidential Papers
  3. Failed to reinstated Linda Tripp's employment
  4. Announced a $40 billion dollar increase in the Department of Education
  5. Announced the Intent to unilaterally dismantle two-thirds of our nuclear weapons
  6. Announced support for a $300 billion dollar healthcare plan associated with Ted Kenney (Did a photo op on it)
  7. Announced the intent to legalize upwards of eleven million illegal immigrants within our borders
  8. Refused to speak out against illegal immigration or take actions to stop it
  9. Pandered to Hispanics at every opportunity, something we've chided Clinton for, making no distinction between legal/illegal  Remember the Macarena?  (sp?)
10. Signed the Campaign Finance Reform Bill even though he new it was unconstitutional
11. Continually asked Israel to refrain from taking action in defense of itself, while offering up only a bare minimum of criticism of Yasser Arasplat
12. Refused to publicly acknowledge that Yasser Arasplat is a terrorist
13. Has just given Jimmy Carter the green light to travel to Cuba and seek more normalized relations and trade later this year

Are these the acts of a man you could support 100%?  Evidently so.

[DoughtyOne]

Thanks for the comments Dave. They didn't help your case.

[LS]

Well, you certainly may be right. However, it will be for naught, no matter how brilliant the "brokered" plan, because one side or the other must win a military victory---a TOTAL victory, that the other acknowledges---before any "peace" will work.

And as I said before, for that to happen, Israel has to decide that it wants to survive more than it wants to be liberal and "reformist." There is a big question as to whether it will make the necessary choice.

[MonroeDNA]

So what's all the Bushbot anger with the Japanese reporter writing the truth of what he had been told in Washington today by the US Administration source?

The truth hurts, sometimes.

I am one of the 535 Volusia county voters who helped tip the balance of the Florida vote to Bush. I am very proud of that.

That said, Arafat IS a terrorist.

I feel ashamed of admitting that by not labeling Arafat as a terrorist, we are lying as a country. He is a terrorist, and I, for one, would not hesitate to do the right thing, with my bare hands, if I met him.

I understand that this conflict has the potential to lead to WWIII if Arafat is killed, and for that reason, Bush must grit his teeth and not call Arafat what he obviously is. I think that If I were president, I would go ahead and let the Isrealis take him out, and hang him from a lamp post in Jerusalem, knowing it would lead to WWIII, gas shortages, depression here, nukes there, and just go down in history as the guy who had to do what he had to do.

But then again, nobody would ever vote me in to an office, let alone the Presidency.

War in the middle east will come, no doubt, eventually. You can't take a bunch of people on camels, nomadic tribes in the desert, 500 years behind in civilization, stoning women and cuttinf off each other's hands, and pour money on them (from sudden oil wealth) and expect them to behave like civilized people.

Isreal has been civilized for thousands of years. Europeans (Christians) went through the enlightenment around 500 years ago. (Before that, we were burning each other at the stake, breaking bones on the wheel, drawing and quartering, crucifying, blinding, etc., no worse than the a-rabs today).

Imagine if we gave high explosives, modern weapons, passports, access to our universities, and knowledge of how to build nuclear weapons to people of the dark ages of Europe. They would behave not much differently. They sure as heck would try to use them on us, and we would have no choice, ultimately, but to convert them to modern thinking, or eradicate them. They were just as self-righteous, just as religeous, just as scared, and just as sure they would be fighting for God.

Moses came a long time ago. Isreal had a long time to civilize. Jesus came later; Christians were enlightend later. Mohammed came later, and they haven't gone through the enlightenment thing. So we fight barbaric people who bury adulterous women up to their armpits and stone them to death.They are not going to change for at least another hundred years, and probably much longer than that.

Arafat IS a terrorist. So are most of them over there.

[takenoprisoner]

If Bush believed Arafat to be the terrorist that most know him to be, then why would he ask Israel not to harm him? I don't get it, but Bush protects the terrorist Arafat for unexplained reasons.

[TexKat]

Your #143 Arab Oil Embargo

Saddam is trying to get it started.

I believe we are just trying to hold off the inevitable.

[LS]

Larry, I agree it will not help us. But what if that is indeed what it really comes down to? How long can we ask/force the Israelis to sit on their hands when their people are blown up?

So, if it DOES come to an Arab vs. Israeli/US "war," what then? It seems to me that someone at the Pentagon AND immigration better be thinking seriously about this.

[mewzilla]

The Big Mew and I would vote for you.