Guardian Unlimited | World Latest | Bush Disavows 'Mission Accomplished' Link: "Wednesday October 29, 2003 2:31 AM

WASHINGTON (AP) - Six months after he spoke on an aircraft carrier deck under a banner proclaiming ``Mission Accomplished,'' President Bush disavowed any connection with the war message. Later, the White House changed its story and said there was a link.

The ``Mission Accomplished'' boast has been mocked many times since Bush's carrier speech as criticism has mounted over the failed search for weapons of mass destruction and the continuing violence in Iraq. "
- posted by Editor @ 6:33 AM

White House helped with ``Mission Accomplished'' banner: "30.10.2003 0:05:00 Reuters World Report

WASHINGTON, Oct 29 (Reuters) - The White House said on Wednesday it had helped with the production of a 'Mission Accomplished' banner as the backdrop for President George W. Bush to declare major combat operations over in Iraq on May 1.
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The question arose because Bush, at his news conference on Tuesday, had said the ship's staff had hung the sign to recognize the end of the ship's deployment -- not as a reflection of the state of the Iraq war.

"I know it was attributed to some ingenious advance man from my staff -- they weren't that ingenious, by the way," Bush said.
- posted by Editor @ 6:26 AM

Boston.com / News / Politics / Dean sees Clinton as Mideast envoy: "By Raja Mishra, Globe Staff, 10/19/2003

DEARBORN, Mich. -- Speaking to a crowd of Arab-American activists, Howard Dean said yesterday that if he won the White House he would ask Bill Clinton to be his Middle East envoy, in an attempt to forge peace between Israelis and Palestinians.
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Even before he arrived, Dean was the talk among those assembled. His comments several weeks ago that the United States should have an "evenhanded policy" resonated deeply with many Arab-Americans here.
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... Many here also took disapproving note that Senator John F. Kerry, Democrat of Massachusetts, was the first to condemn Dean's comments. Senator Joseph I. Lieberman, Democrat of Connecticut, also denounced Dean's remarks, pointing out that official US policy has long viewed Israel as the key ally in the Mideast.
- posted by Editor @ 11:35 AM

Arab-American audience boos, heckles Lieberman - 10/18/03: "Saturday, October 18, 2003 | By Stephanie Simon / Los Angeles Times | Carlos Osorio / Associated Press

DEARBORN, Mich. -- He stood before them speaking of solidarity, introducing himself with words from the Bible: 'I am Joseph, your brother.' But Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut was pelted with jeers as he brought his quest for the Democratic presidential nomination to an Arab-American leadership conference in this Detroit suburb on Friday.

'Go home to Tel Aviv,' one woman called in disgust as Lieberman, an Orthodox Jew, cast Israelis as victims of Palestinian terrorism.
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But the crowd of several hundred got angry when Lieberman turned his remarks to the Middle East.

When the moderator asked Lieberman about Israel's policy of bulldozing homes in Palestinian territory after suicide attacks, an Arab American in the audience shouted out: "Isn't that terrorism?"

"It's not terrorism," Lieberman responded, to a crescendo of boos. Instead, the senator called the Israeli actions "regrettable" and "heartbreaking."

"He makes me so mad," said Hanan Rasheed, a Palestinian activist from Danville, Calif. During Lieberman's speech, she derided him under her breath. After, she said: "He's running for the wrong office. He should be running for the prime minister of Israel."

Lieberman sought to justify the wall that Israel is erecting around its declared security zone as a temporary measure, to be dismantled when Palestinian leaders prove they can stop suicide bomb attacks. Again, the crowd interrupted with catcalls.

"The wall has to do with stealing resources from the Palestinians, with taking their land and water," shouted Greta Berlin, a Palestinian activist from Los Angeles who recently returned from two months in the West Bank. Lieberman, maintaining his composure, waited until she was through, then repeated his promise to vigorously push the region toward peace if elected.

It seemed doubtful he won many people over.

"Lieberman? I hated him," said Tawfiq Barqawi, president of the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee of Greater Philadelphia.
- posted by Editor @ 6:02 AM

The Village Voice: Nation: Nat Hentoff: Bush's Vanished Prisoner by Nat Hentoff He Wonders Whether He Will See the Light of Day Again | October 10th, 2003 6:00 PM

The Constitution creates no executive prerogative to dispose of the liberty of the individual. Proceedings against him must be authorized by law. �United States Supreme Court, Valentine v. U.S. (1936)
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On June 9, 2002, commander in chief George W. Bush, acting under the Authorization for Use of Military Force Joint Resolution, sent an order to the Defense Department designating Jose Padilla, an American citizen, an "enemy combatant." The president did this all by himself, even though, as I noted in a previous column—quoting a friend of the court brief to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals by a historic array of former federal judges and establishment lawyers:

"There is no constitutionally approved definition of who is an 'enemy combatant.' " Nor is there any basis in our laws for holding Jose Padilla indefinitely without charges, or access to his lawyer, Donna Newman. In the August 25 New York Law Journal, Thomas Adcock reports, "She writes frequently to her client, but military officials in South Carolina [where he is imprisoned] will not confirm that their prisoner has received her letters."

The Law Journal story adds that Donna Newman, "after . . . combing through sealed court papers the Justice Department was obliged to reveal . . . concluded that the government's case against her client relies on two informers: one with a drug problem, she said, and the other who has recanted."

Before being swept away to a military brig, Padilla—first arrested at O'Hare Airport in Chicago and then held in a high-security prison in Manhattan as a material witness—was accused by Attorney General John Ashcroft, in a dramatic television appearance from Moscow, to have somehow been involved in somebody's plan to detonate a radioactive "dirty bomb" somewhere in the United States. ...
- posted by Editor @ 5:50 AM

Evangelicals and Israel: Theological Roots of a Political Alliance: "Evangelicals and Israel: Theological Roots of a Political Alliance
by Donald Wagner | The Christian Century, | November 4, 1998, pp. 1020-1026

Donald Wagner is director of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at North Park University in Chicago and director of Evangelicals for Middle East Understanding. This article appeared in The Christian Century, November 4, 1998, pp. 1020-1026. Copyright by The Christian Century Foundation; used by permission. Current articles and subscription information can be found at www.christiancentury.org. This article prepared for Religion Online by Ted & Winnie Brock.

When Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited Washington this past January, his initial meeting was not with President Clinton but with Jerry Falwell and more than 1,000 fundamentalist Christians. The crowd saluted the prime minister as 'the Ronald Reagan of Israel,' and Falwell pledged to contact more than 200,000 evangelical pastors, asking them to 'tell President Clinton to refrain from putting pressure on Israel' to comply with the Oslo accords.

The meeting between Netanyahu and Falwell illustrates a remarkable political and theological convergence. The link between Israelis Likud government and the U.S. Religious Right was established by Natanyahu's mentor, Menachem Begin, during the Carter and Reagan administrations. However, the roots of evangelical support for Israel lie in the long tradition of Christian thinking about the millennium.
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The final development that accelerated the alliance between Likud and the Religious Right was Carter's March 1977 statement that he supported Palestinian human rights, including the "right to a homeland." Likud, when it came to power just two months later; immediately reached out to Christian evangelicals. Likud's strategy was simple: split evangelical and fundamentalist Christians from Carter's political base and rally support among conservative Christians for Israel's opposition to the United Nations' proposed Middle East Peace Conference.

Within weeks, full-page advertisements appeared in major U.S. newspapers stating, "The time has come for evangelical Christians to affirm their belief in biblical prophecy and Israel's divine right to the land." Targeting Soviet involvement in the UN conference, the ad went on to say: "We affirm as evangelicals our belief in the promised land to the Jewish people . . . . We would view with grave concern any effort to carve out of the Jewish homeland another nation or political entity."
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Several members of the Advisory Council backed the pro-Israel advertisement in the April 10, 1997, New York Times. Titled "Christians Call for a United Jerusalem," the ad may have been a direct response to a December 1996 Times ad sponsored by Churches for Middle East Peace, calling for a "Shared Jerusalem."

The Christian Zionist ad claimed that its signatories reach more than 100,000 Christians weekly and called for evangelicals to support the Likud position on Jewish sovereignty over Jerusalem. Using several familiar dispensationalist themes, the ad claimed: "Jerusalem has been the spiritual and political capital of only the Jewish people for 3,000 years." Citing Genesis 12:17, Leviticus 26:44-45 and Deuteronomy 7:7-8, it spoke of Israel's biblical claim to the land. The ad was signed by Pat Robertson of the Christian Broadcasting Network; Ralph Reed, then director of the Christian Coalition; Ed McAteer of the Religious Roundtable; and Falwell, among others. Voicing one of Netanyahu's themes, the ad asked that Israel "not be pressured to concede on issues of Jerusalem in the final status negotiations with the Palestinians."
- posted by Editor @ 12:22 PM

Excite - News: "Bush Says Leaker May Not Be Found in CIA-Iraq Probe Oct 7, 1:26 pm ET By Randall Mikkelsen

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The White House on Tuesday ruled out three senior aides as possible sources for a leak disclosing the name of an undercover CIA operative and President Bush said the case may never be resolved.

'I have no idea whether we'll find out who the leaker is,' Bush told reporters after he met with his Cabinet. 'I'd like to. I want to know the truth.'

Spokesman Scott McClellan said senior Bush political aide Karl Rove, vice presidential chief of staff Lewis Libby and National Security Council senior director Elliott Abrams had each denied being the source of the leak."
- posted by Editor @ 10:54 AM