Antiwar.com Blog

Hamas leaders on the Israeli assassination of Yassin:

Announcing Yassin’s death over mosque loudspeakers, the Hamas leadership said: “Prime Minister Sharon has opened the gates of hell – and nothing will stop us from cutting off his head.”

The Al Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades also promised swift retaliation for the killing.

Abu Abeer, spokesman for militant Palestinian groups, warned there would be “swift and serious” repercussions over the attack.

He said: “The Israelis have opened the gates of hell. For us, everything is now permissible after this assassination.“

Has anyone seen an American response to this assassination yet, besides the hapless Rice lamely advocating “calm?” France, the UK, the EU, and the Vatican have all condemned it publicly. You’d think that with thousands of American troops acting as “terrorist magnets” in Iraq, the Americans would want to distance themselves from this inflammatory and criminal act carried out by their “best friends” in the region.

What if opinions like this became even more widespread than they are already?

Sheikh Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah, a top Shi’ite Muslim cleric, said in Beirut that U.S. President George W. Bush was as guilty as Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.

“President Bush was the one who gave the green light to the criminal Zionists to continue the assassination operations against the Palestinians using the most advanced American weapons,” said Fadlallah, who shares Hamas’s objectives.

Please, somebody, tell me that Bush isn’t going to make another “Bring ’em on” speech. With the idiots in charge in Washington, you never know.

I read about this briefly during the election, but this article goes more in depth.

In Spain, however, the objectives were more concrete. Political demonstrations are officially banned in the 24 hours preceding the voting. But this time, activists came together anyway, as millions of text messages and e-mails circulated. Though Spain has relatively few Internet users, its mobile phone penetration, at 94 percent, is among the highest in the world, according to the market researcher Gartner.

On March 13, the day before the elections, text-messaging traffic was 20 percent above the normal rate, the Spanish daily El País reported, citing industry sources; on election day, it was 40 percent higher.

This phenomenom was also responsible for the enormous turnout February 15, 2003, when millions of people demonstrated worldwide against the Bush invasion of Iraq.

Viva la revolución!

Billmon has written the best analysis yet of the astonishing transformation (kind of like David “Come Clean George” Kay on steroids) of Richard Clarke from senior career bureaucrat to whistleblower. Well, Billmon says it better:

He’s no mild-mannered reporter — more like a human bulldozer — but Richard Clarke also appears to have ducked into a phone both and come out a changed man. The former career securocrat has ripped off his suit and tie and put on his tights and cape. And he’s going after Shrub like Superman going after one of his many imposters:

“I find it outrageous that the President is running for re-election on the grounds that he’s done such great things about terrorism. He ignored it. He ignored terrorism for months, when maybe we could have done something to stop 9/11. Maybe. We’ll never know.”

That’s what’s going out on 60 Minutes tomorrow night, when Clarke’s interview with Leslie Stahl is aired. What effect it will have on Bush’s entirely undeserved public reputation as an anti-terrorism gunslinger is anybody’s guess. Ditto for Clarke’s book, due for release on Monday. But there’s no question Clarke is giving the White House the Lex Luthor treatment.

Now maybe I’m just old fashioned, but I find this rather remarkable. Clarke is a SES man — Senior Executive Service, the top tier of the career civil service — and one who has served seven presidents, five of them Republicans. I can’t recall any previous examples of a career executive of Clarke’s rank and caliber going so publicly ballistic on a sitting president.

I’m going to quote the CBS article at length. See for yourself the devastating accusations Clarke is levelling against the Bush neocons and enablers. Continue reading “Keystone Kops vs. Al Qaeda”

I am so sorry I missed the Eric Alterman episode! I’ve been trying to catch at least part of Miller’s show every evening–anticipating the moment when Miller finally breaks down and slips constant guest David Horowitz some tongue on live TV–but I somehow missed Tuesday night’s fracas. How much longer can Miller last? Granted, it’s CNBC, where they’ll let any idiot embarrass himself for as long as he wants, but not without viewers.

I came across this article and suddenly realized they’re right…Tony is trying to slip away unnoticed and miss the gala one year Shock and Awe Anniversary Party.

Hey, Tony, no speeches or Liberation Parties? Nothing?

Remember this, Tony?

The future of the Iraqi people is one reason why much of our discussion has focused on humanitarian issues. Again here we have the ship, the Sir Galahad, loaded with tonnes of supplies destined for the people of Iraq. The other immediate humanitarian priority is to re-start the UN oil for food programme which the President and I discussed and which I will be discussing with Kofi Annan later this evening, and this is urgent. We also discussed the post-conflict issues. Contrary to a lot of the comment on this, the position is exactly as the President and I set out in the Azores, namely that we will work with the UN, our allies and partners and bilateral donors. We will seek new UN Security Council resolutions to affirm Iraq’s territorial integrity, to ensure a rapid delivery of humanitarian relief, and endorse an appropriatepost-conflict administration for Iraq.
[…]
And the other reason why I think it is important that we act, and why indeed we have many, many allies, is because people do know that this is a brutal regime. That is not the reason for us initiating this action, that is in relation to weapons of mass destruction, but it is the reason why if we do so as we are doing.

You guys pretty much blew that deal, didn’t you? No wonder you aren’t celebrating.

Scroll down for my exchange with Steven Horwitz. That’s all for today.