Monday, February 17, 2003

History Making Weekend QUOTE OF THE DAY "This is all Britain standing together regardless of age, race or sex. This war is solely about oil. George Bush has never given a damn about human rights." - - Ken Livingstone, Mayor of London (at Saturday's million strong London protest) RHINO HERE: Quite a weekend gang! It began with Weapons Inspector Hans Blix reporting back to the U.N. stating in no uncertain terms that there was NO SMOKING GUN found in Iraq. He also debunked the claims of General Colin Powell, including the one about Iraq having cleaned-up suspect sites before inspectors arrived. Powell lied through his teeth and the inspectors called him on it. Friday was a good day. "Blix: Inspectors have not found any weapons of mass destruction, banned materials unaccounted for." Associated Press, Friday, February 14, 2003 http://truthout.org/docs_02/021503B.htm "On a day of high drama, a quiet Swede may just have turned back the tide of war." London Independent, 2/15/03 http://news.independent.co.uk/world/politics/story.jsp?story=378431 CIA Lied To Congress? (Surprise, Surprise) Also on Friday Senate Democrats leveled charged at the CIA Director George Tenet that he and the Agency had lied and worked to sabotage the U.N. Inspections. CIA operatives lying? "CIA 'sabotaged inspections and hid weapons details'" London Independent, 2/14/03 http://news.independent.co.uk/world/politics/story.jsp?story=378163 Unusual Outburst of Applause at the U.N. And then came the responses from the UN delegates. One by one they denounced the warmongering plans of the shrub gang, culminating with an outburst of applause (something not done at the U.N.) for French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin, who pulled no punches, saying, "No-one can assert today that the path of war will be shorter than that of the inspections. No-one can claim either that it might lead to a safer, more just and more stable world, for war is always the sanction of failure. This message comes to you today from an old country, France, from a continent like mine, Europe, that has known wars, occupation and barbarity. An old country that does not forget and knows everything it owes to the freedom-fighters who came from America and elsewhere and yet has never ceased to stand upright in the face of history and before mankind. It wishes resolutely to act with all the members of the international community. Faithful to its values, it believes in our ability to build together a better world (applause)." "A bad day for the chickenhawks: Major powers rebuff Bush push for war" Toronto Star, 2/15/03 http://www.smirkingchimp.com/article.php?sid=10209&mode=nested&order=0 "In quotes: Security Council reaction" BBC News, 2/15/03 http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/2763735.stm History making International Protests Then on Saturday, MILLIONS of people around the globe made history by taking to the streets to protest the shrub gang's threats of war. This was the largest anti-war protest in the history of the planet and it just may have stopped rummie and the boyz in their trax. Even after all their grandstanding about making the world safe for democracy, the steering committee of the coup d' shrub figured the people had forgotten what real democracy is all about. Even shrub's home town of Crawford Texas had 300 people protesting. Following are links to articles on a sampling of the international protests: "Millions join global anti-war protests", BBC News http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/2765215.stm NEW YORK http://www.unitedforpeace.org/article.php?id=1047 http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=15196 http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=15195 DALLAS http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=15197 SEATTLE http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=15194 AUSTRALIA http://www.unitedforpeace.org/article.php?id=1029 GERMANY http://germany.indymedia.org/2003/02/41442.shtml GREECE Greece HOLLAND http://www.indymedia.nl/nl/2003/02/9388.shtml IRELAND http://ireland.indymedia.org/ ISRAEL Israel SOUTH AFRICA http://www.sabcnews.com/politics/the_parties/0,1009,51744,00.html SPAIN http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L15551872 UNITED KINGDOM http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/2766805.stm 8:03:45 AM    comment

Walking Along Streets of Peace THE BOTTOM LINE this Monday is an appropriately joyous essay by columnist Jimmy Breslin: Walking Along Streets of Peace by Jimmy Breslin, NY Newsday, Sunday, 2/16/03 On streets of beauty, the warm people inched along or stood and chanted and laughed against a war and for peace and their warmth made the winter temperature irrelevant. They were summer people in winter clothes. They were the largest and happiest crowd seen in this city maybe ever, outside of a war's end in 1945. There were fathers with children on their shoulders. There were mothers holding their young. There were kids walking alongside their parents. There were religious people everywhere. And so many were young. Young students, young married, young in a city that belonged to the dreams and love and laughter of youth. Do you want a life with thrills, years of exhilaration? Come to New York. Where yesterday they said they did not want war. They said it with their presence and with the most signs of my time in my city. The signs were against war, and against George W. Bush, who, for the first time, was being heralded as a man who lost the popular vote in this country by 500,000. Looking down Third Avenue and Second Avenue, as the crowds came up to try to get to the rear of the great crowd on First Avenue, and then peering as far down First Avenue as you could see, the size of throngs caused you to tell yourself, "maybe a million." Whatever it was, out on the street it felt like a million, and it was glorious. A news photographer I know came along. "I've been everyplace. I have to say a million." Because of the Police Department's reprehensible pens, the crowd was separated so that there was not one clear picture of an enormous group that would cause politicians here to faint. The crowd so frightening was made of people who mostly never had protested before, who were too young for the Vietnam protests and who cannot be classified under any of the old words, "demonstrators" or "anti-war," because they are new and they are real. War may be a great favorite with a Texas Theocracy, with a president who speaks in the first person more than anybody we have had in decades -- "I'm sick and tired of waiting" -- and who calls on God to bless the country as if no other people made in the image and likeness of God are alive on earth... READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE AT: http://www.COMMONDREAMS.ORG/views03/0216-10.htm "RHINO'S BLOG" is the responsibility of Gary Rhine. (rhino@kifaru.com) Feedback, and requests to be added or deleted from the list are encouraged. SEARCH BLOG ARCHIVES / SURF RHINO'S LINKS, AT: http://www.rhinosblog.info RHINO'S OTHER WEB SITES: http://www.dreamcatchers.org (INDIGENOUS ASSISTANCE & INTERCULTURAL DIALOG) http://www.kifaru.com (NATIVE AMERICAN RELATIONS VIDEO DOCUMENTARIES) Articles are reprinted under Fair Use Doctrine of international copyright law. http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.html All copyrights belong to original publisher. 7:36:21 AM    comment

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