looking at your ugly shape what are you talking for (pt 2)
And while watching the terrible twosome have their little conip fits was a neat special effect for a little while, there were two comments made (and subsequent lack of follow up) that spoke volumes more about the kind of political discourse we're allowed to have, and just at what cost.
First was this:
CHENEY: Twenty years ago we had a similar situation in El Salvador. We had -- guerrilla insurgency controlled roughly a third of the country, 75,000 people dead, and we held free elections. I was there as an observer on behalf of the Congress.
The human drive for freedom, the determination of these people to vote, was unbelievable. And the terrorists would come in and shoot up polling places; as soon as they left, the voters would come back and get in line and would not be denied the right to vote.
And today El Salvador is a whale of a lot better because we held free elections.
The power of that concept is enormous. And it will apply in Afghanistan, and it will apply as well in Iraq.
El Salvador?
This El Salvador?:
On March 7, 1980, two weeks before the assassination, a state of siege had been instituted in El Salvador, and the war against the population began in force (with continued US support and involvement). The first major attack was a big massacre at the Rio Sumpul, a coordinated military operation of the Honduran and Salvadoran armies in which at least 600 people were butchered. Infants were cut to pieces with machetes, and women were tortured and drowned. Pieces of bodies were found in the river for days afterwards. There were church observers, so the information came out immediately, but the mainstream US media didn't think it was worth reporting.
Peasants were the main victims of this war, along with labor organizers, students, priests or anyone suspected of working for the interests of the people. In Carter's last year, 1980, the death toll reached about 10,000, rising to about 13,000 for 1981 as the Reaganites took command.
(Nary a word about that from John Edwards, though to be fair, a lot of what Cheney said Tuesday night was all lies, so mayhaps it was best he just let it slide)
Second was via John Edwards, when he made what's essentially replaced baby-kissing as the standard gesture of sensitivity when running for super high high office in America, piously claiming that "Israel has a right to defend herself":
What are the Israeli people supposed to do? How can they continue to watch Israeli children killed by suicide bombers, killed by terrorists?
They have not only the right to the obligation to defend themselves.
Now, we know that the prime minister has made a decision, an historic decision, to unilaterally withdraw from Gaza. It's important for America to participate in helping with that process.
Now, if Gaza's being used as a platform for attacking the Israeli people, that has to be stopped. And Israel has a right to defend itself. They don't have a partner for peace right now. They certainly don't have a partner in Arafat, and they need a legitimate partner for peace.
And I might add, it is very important for America to crack down on the Saudis who have not had a public prosecution for financing terrorism since 9/11.
And it's important for America to confront the situation in Iran, because Iran is an enormous threat to Israel and to the Israeli people.
Leaving aside for a moment just how reprehensible suicide bombings are, leaving aside for a moment just what sort of role the Palestinian people should have in choosing their own leaders and determining who should be "legitimate partner[s] for peace," leaving aside for a moment that Israel's unacknowledged nuclear weapons are probably among the most "enormous threat[s]" to not only the rest of the Mid East but Israel's own citizens, leaving aside Israel's forcefully provocative projection in the Mid-East - leaving aside all that for a moment - there will be no "smarter peace" to be made in the Mid-East, regardless of who's in office, until smarmy public pronouncements about a colonial state's "right to defend hereself" sans all context is instead replaced by a full accounting of just what sort of role the U.S. plays in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Though for the time being it would seem we would get more of the same from s Kerry-Edwards Admininstration.
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