• "As Iraq has triumphed over terrorism, it will triumph in the international arena."   Nouri al-Maliki on the 5th anniversary of the start of the Iraq war. Iraq's leader voices optimism Iraq has defeated terrorism and is well on the road to recovery after five years of war, a confident Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said Thursday....

• "Remember, the Iranians are always five to seven years from the bomb... Time passes, but they're always five to seven years from the bomb   Shlomo Brom, deputy national security adviser under former Prime Minister Ehud Barak,, see Is Iran NIE a Blessing in Disguise for Israel?

• "Styrofoam Cups: If the cup has writing on it, confiscate, complete a DA 4137, and give to the Evidence Custodian. If the cup is damaged or destroyed, the detainee will be disciplined for destruction of government property. Also, consult the damaged property matrix to determine the length of time the detainee looses the Styrofoam cup...."   from the Camp Delta SOP * 28 March 2003, see SOP Camp Delta - JTF-GTMO & JDOG

• "I take pride in the fact that, being a man in uniform, I have actually introduced the essence of democracy in Pakistan, whether anyone believes it or not."   President Gen. Pervez Musharraf, swearing in a caretaker administration November 16th, 2007.

• "... I found myself between a rock and a hard surface..."   President Musharraf of Pakistan...

• "It’s like surfing, except that here we’re surfing on top of a shit tidal wave, and we’re just trying not to fall in.”   A U.S. major at Joint Security Station Thrasher, in the western Baghdad suburb of Ghazaliya - Inside the Surge

• "They are the most vicious enemy of Muslims, who should be wary of their plots,They should be boycotted and expelled so that Muslims spared their evil." - Abdullah bin Jabrain, a key member in Saudi Arabia's (Sunni) clerical establishment... speaking of Shiites...

• "Many of you have known the owner of this letter for his truthfulness, his honesty, his purity, and his genuine concern over his people, for his wisdom, his vision, his justice, and for his firmness in dealing with issues and for his watchfulness over the properties of the people and of the country, and for living according to his conscience and his mind. His heart aches for the poor and he does not rest until he helps in improving their condition and attends to their needs. His heart contains all his people and his nation, and he craves to be honest and faithful without differentiating between his people except on the basis of their efforts, efficiency, and patriotism...."   - Saddam Hussein on his favorite subject (i.e. himself and his greatness) in his final farewell letter.   Transaltions at lauramansfield.com (scroll down) and the BBC.

• Murad Kariyev says he will "do everything to make him (Berdymukhamedov in Turkmenistan) president because he is a worthy successor."   Great, except that Kariyev is the chief of Turkmenistan's elections office, see Turkmen Acting Leader Is Heir Apparent

• "It will be a miracle if there isn't a terror attack over the holidays in London" and "It is not a matter of if there will be an attack, but how bad the attack will be"   - per an unnamed "senior American law enforcement official" to ABCNews.com, see   London Braces for Attack; 'Miracle' If There Isn't One Well, apparently a miracle did take place... Oops, spoke to soon! Per the BBC "... Thousands of revellers were left disappointed as severe weather led to the cancellation of several official UK parties..." Soon the same unnamed sources will be telling us how al-Qaeda was responsible...

• "International law has made plain that certain types of conduct, including torture and hostage taking, are not acceptable on the part of anyone. This applies as much to heads of state, or even more so, as it does to anyone else. The contrary conclusion would make a mockery out of international law."   from Lord Nicholls' ruling in Judgment - Regina v. Bartle .... EX Parte Pinochet

• "America's arrival in the region presented Iran with an historic opportunity. The kind of service that the Americans, with all their hatred, have done us - no superpower has ever done anything similar. America destroyed all our enemies in the region. It destroyed the Taliban. It destroyed Mr. Saddam Hussein. It imprisoned the hypocrites [Mojahedin-e Khalq] in France..." - Mohsen Rezai, secretary of the Iranian Expediency Council, November 11, 2006.

• ""There's a lot of upheaval in his life. It's one thing if you're behind for six months and see it coming... What do you do now? How do you feed yourself and your wife?"   Representative Dave Weldon, R-Fla., speaking re his friend John Sweeney, who lost his bid for re-election and is "very broken up." Per On the Hill, the sound of silence Sniff, sob...

• "“The president by definition knows more than any of those people who are serving on these panels.”"   Andrew Card, ex Chief of Staff, speaking of the Iraq Study Group.

• "The election has changed many things in Washington, but it has not changed my fundamental responsibility, and that is to protect the American people from attack...."    President George Bush 11/08/06 in his press conference after the elections. Yet again, President Bush is wrong.... as President of the United States he did not take an oath to defend the United States, he took an oath to defend the constitution of the United States....

• "Do I? You know, I should. It’s a difference in their fundamental religious beliefs. The Sunni are more radical than the Shia. Or vice versa. But I think it’s the Sunnis who’re more radical than the Shia.”   - Representative Jo Ann Davis (R-Virginia), head of a House intelligence subcommittee charged with overseeing the C.I.A.’s performance in recruiting Islamic spies and analyzing information, when asked if she knew the difference between Sunnis and Shiites.

• "When we entered Lebanon … there was no Hizbullah. We were accepted with perfumed rice and flowers by the Shia in the south. It was our presence there that created Hizbullah."   - Ehud Barak, Barak's View   (on Lebanon)

• ""Why does this war break out this week, all of sudden with little warning? Because this is the exact week the Jewish people are trying to decide whether the gay pride parade should take place in Jerusalem or Tel Aviv.... This [parade] is an attack against God himself. God has told the Jewish people, 'If you are not going to fight for my honor, you will be forced to fight for your own honor..." - Pinchas Winston, a noted author, rabbi and lecturer based in Jerusalem, here.   Quote: "Are Israel's troubles in the Gaza Strip and Lebanon and the Hezbollah rockets slamming daily into major Israeli population centers here a result of the Jewish state's tacit support for a homosexual parade slated for next month in Jerusalem?"

• "If I was president, this wouldn't have happened" - John Kerry, opining on the conflict in Lebanon.    Pffftt!

• "We have no particular desire to topple the Hamas government..." Ehud Olmert. Implausible given every measure taken by his administration, and the U.S. too for that matter, following Hamas' electoral victory in Gaza.

• "La dissuasion nucléaire, je l'avais souligné au lendemain des attentats du 11 septembre 2001, n'est pas destinée à dissuader des terroristes fanatiques. Pour autant, les dirigeants d'Etats qui auraient recours à des moyens terroristes contre nous, tout comme ceux qui envisageraient d'utiliser, d'une manière ou d'une autre, des armes de destruction massive, doivent comprendre qu'ils s'exposent à une réponse ferme et adaptée de notre part. Et cette réponse peut être conventionnelle. Elle peut aussi être d'une autre nature." Jacques Chirac in Jan 2006... that France was prepared to launch a nuclear strike against any country that sponsors a terrorist attack against French interests, and that the French nuclear arsenal had been reconfigured to include this ability. Read the entire speech here.

• "I took a poo in the woods hunched over like an animal. It was awesome." Drew Barrymore.. "My favorite thing about Bhutan is they measure their country's wealth, not based on dollar amount but on gross national happiness" Cameron Diaz. These and other inanities quoted in Celebs Ignore Death, Poverty on MTV Enviro Series

• "To stop them from smuggling out the soldier... Because there's going to be minimal light at night it will restrict the possibility... In order to stop them from smuggling out the soldier..." Deputy Ambassador Zvi Ravner on BBC Channel 4 explaining why Israel bombed the main electric station in the Gaza Strip, thereby cutting off power (... and the water supply) to over a million inhabitants...

• "A popular response is: "If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear."
  

  "By that reasoning, of course, we shouldn't mind if the police were free to come into our homes at any time just to look around, if all our telephone conversations were monitored, if all our mail were read, if all the protections developed over centuries were swept away. It's only a difference of degree from the intrusions already being implemented or considered.
  

  The truth is that we all do have something to hide, not because it's criminal or even shameful, but simply because it's private. We carefully calibrate what we reveal about ourselves to others. Most of us are only willing to have a few things known about us by a stranger, more by an acquaintance, and the most by a very close friend or a romantic partner. The right not to be known against our will - indeed, the right to be anonymous except when we choose to identify ourselves - is at the very core of human dignity, autonomy and freedom.
  

  If we allow the state to sweep away the normal walls of privacy that protect the details of our lives, we will consign ourselves psychologically to living in a fishbowl. Even if we suffered no other specific harm as a result, that alone would profoundly change how we feel. Anyone who has lived in a totalitarian society can attest that what often felt most oppressive was precisely the lack of privacy." - From the annual report 2001-2002 of the Canadian Privacy Commissioner.

• "I think we have a problem on global warming. I think there is a debate about whether it's caused by mankind or whether it's caused naturally, but it's a worthy debate. It's a debate, actually, that I'm in the process of solving by advancing new technologies, burning coal cleanly in electric plants, or promoting hydrogen-powered automobiles, or advancing ethanol as an alternative to gasoline." - George Bush to People magazine in answer to "Do you think Gore is right on global warming?" 07/06/06

• "It struck me as I was speaking to people in Bangor, Maine, that this president sees America as we think about a 10-year-old child. I know as a parent I would sacrifice all for my children." - Andrew Card in 2004 when White House Chief Of Staff.... link

• "Being an Arab will be thornier than you suppose..." - Auda ibu Tayi.
  

  "There's nothing here for a warrior. We drive bargains, old men's work... Young men make war, and the virtues of wars are the virtues of young men - courage and hope for the future. Then old men make the peace, and the vices of peace are the vices of old men - mistrust and caution. It must be so" - Prince Faisal
  

  Actually Anthony Quinn and Alec Guiness (below) in Lawrence Of Arabia (1962). True in today's Iraq, in spades...
  

  

• "When the parties [Hamas and Fatah] are directly compared, likely voters tend to see Hamas as more qualified to clean up corruption, resist occupation, and uphold societal values.... A lack of hope in the peace process may also contribute to support for Hamas. Likely voters who have little or no hope that there will be a peaceful resolution to the conflict clearly prefer Hamas (30%) to Fateh (12%).... A just-completed Office of Research survey in the Palestinian Territories shows a much closer race at the polls than some have predicted... The likely success of Hamas at the polls reflects the long-term rise of public trust in the party. The proportion in the January survey who say they trust Hamas matches the historic high of 27%, first seen in spring 2005, and represents a 6 point increase since November..." - State Department intelligence estimate "Hamas and Fateh Neck and Neck As Palestinian Elections Near" January 19th, 2006.
  

  "I don't know anyone who wasn't caught off guard by Hamas' strong showing... I've asked why nobody saw it coming and I hope that we will take a hard look, because it does say something about perhaps not having had a good enough pulse on the Palestinian population..." - Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, January 29, 2006

• “It is now clear that we are facing an implacable enemy whose avowed objective is world domination by whatever means and whatever cost. There are no rules in such a game. Hitherto acceptable norms of human conduct do not apply. If the United States is to survive, longstanding concepts of 'fair play' must be reconsidered. We must develop effective espionage and counter-espionage services, and must learn to subvert, sabotage, and destroy our enemies by more clever, more sophisticated, and more effective methods than those used against us.” - Post 9/11 ("everything changed") reference to al-Qaeda and it's dream of a Muslim caliphate?? No, General James Doolittle in a 1954 comission report to President Eisenhower on how to fight communism...    here

• “We dominate the scene and we will continue to impose our will on this country" - L. Paul Bremer III on June 29th, 2003.    Below is a picture of "Pacha" Bremer, taken in Kirkuk in October 2003 at graduation ceremonies for newly-trained Iraqi soldiers.
  
  
  

• “I‘d like to say to the good citizens of Dover: if there is a disaster in your area, don‘t turn to God, you just rejected Him from your city… And don‘t wonder why He hasn‘t helped you when problems begin, if they begin. I‘m not saying they will, but if they do, just remember, you just voted God out of your city. And if that‘s the case, don‘t ask for His help because he might not be there.” -Pat Robertson, 700 Club, 11/10/05, after voters in Dover, PA turned out the school board which had pushed for ID to be taught as an alternative to the theory of evolution.

• "We don't have prophets who can tell us exactly what are God's ways, but when we see something so enormous as Katrina, I would say [President] Bush and [Secretary of State Condoleezza] Rice need to make an accounting of their actions, because something was done wrong by America in a big way. And here there are many obvious connections between the storm and the Gaza evacuation, which came right on top of each other. No one has permission to take away one inch of the land of Israel from the Jewish people." - Rabbi Joseph Garlitzky, head of the international Chabad Lubavitch movement's Tel Aviv synagogue.

• "Since no nation threatens China, one wonders: Why this growing investment? - U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, talking about China's increasing defense budget (at an asian regional security conference in Singapore). This when US defense spending now is set to exceed the defense spending of the rest of the world combined.

• "The interim constitution embodies principles central to the rule of law. Torture is illegal. Search warrants are required, the accused is innocent until proven guilty, and has right to counsel and a free and open trial." - L Paul Bremer writing re Iraq in the Wall Street Journal - "Tyranny To Democracy"

• "Nothing has changed. The only difference is that we were once ruled by a dictator and now we are ruled by clowns." - Shia on the street of Baghdad, commenting on the inability of the elected representatives to form a government (as reported in The Telegraph).

• "There are absolutely no grounds for considering homosexual unions to be in any way similar or even remotely analogous to God's plan for marriage and family. Marriage is holy, while homosexual acts go against natural moral law." - Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict XVI) in 2003. Also, on the subject of priests molesting kids, in 2002 - I am personally convinced that the constant presence in the press of sins of Catholic priests, especially in the United States, is a planned campaign, as the percentage of these offences among priests is not higher than in other categories, and perhaps it is even lower... One comes to the conclusion that it is intentional, manipulated, that there is a desire to discredit the church."

• "Blair is to frankness what Herod was to baby sitting.." - former British prime minister John Major on current prime minister Tony Blair.

• " The most solemn duty of the American President is to protect the American people. Since September the 11th, 2001, we've taken bold and vigorous steps to prevent further attacks and overcome emerging threats." - President Bush, speaking re Schiavo and the WMD Commission Report

• "There is no way for change, because of this rigging. It's likely to be more rigged than the last one. They [ZANU] have learnt a lot of tricks. People just pray that Mugabe should die. I pray for that." - Bulawayo (Zimbabwe) Archbishop Pius Ncube, just before Zimbabwe's recent elections... A government spokesman called Rev. Ncube "a mad, inveterate liar" and "an instrument of the west's illegal regime-change agenda."

• "Our apologies for not mentioning the names of all the candidates, but the security situation is bad and we have to keep them alive" - from a flier for the United Iraqi Alliance, one of the many slates of candidates in the upcoming elections. Folks will be voting for the lists, some without knowing the actual candidates (in this case 37 names are published while 188 others are not listed).

• "This is commander. Anything that's mobile, that moves in the zone, even if it's a three-year-old, needs to be killed. Over" - Captain R in the Israeli army, subsequently charged with illegal use of his weapon, conduct unbecoming an officer, and a number of other charges, after emptying his magazine into a 13-year old Palestinian girl in Gaza. An initial army inquiry cleared him of all charges, but then soldiers under his command went to an Israeli newspaper to tell the truth. Subsequently Israel's Channel 2 TV played the tapes of the radio communications between an army watchtower, the army post operations room, and the captain. Information re the fallout can be read here.

• "It was easier than going home and having her say 'what happened at the office today?'" - Disney CEO Michael Eisner on why he was in the habit of copying his wife, Jane Eisner, on his communications with the Disney board (as reported in the WSJ).

• "They (the Palestinians) will choose where to bury him, but he will not be buried in Jerusalem because Jerusalem is the city where Jewish kings are buried and not Arab terrorists" - Israeli Justice Minister Yosef Lapid to the Associated Press Television News, speaking of Yasser Arafat's funeral.

• "A President needs to get all the facts.... before jumping to a politically-motivated conclusion" - President Bush at an election rally, as seen on CNN 10/28/04.    "I have a plan..." - the challenger John Kerry.    "The incompetent (Bush) or the incoherent (Kerry) - Our election verdict" - Cover of The Economist (Oct 30th edition)

• "India picks Sonia Gandhi as first female prime minister." - scrolling headline seen on MSNBC 05/14/04. Huh???

• "If I had known this I would have stayed on hunger strike longer, that way I would have had a smaller bill" - Vincent Hickey, released after 17 years in a British jail wrongly convicted for murder, when the British government billed him GBP 60,000 for "room and board" The response from the British Home Office?? ".. an independent assessor appointed by the Home Secretary takes into account the range of costs the prisoner might have incurred had they not be imprisoned..." & "Morally, this is reasonable and appropriate.."

• "There was no intention on his part not to have the intention for such weapons and programs." - Colin Powell, U.S. Secretary of State, February 20th, 2004, commenting on Saddam Hussein's WMD, while defending the Iraq war.

• Four former Shin Bet chiefs criticized Ariel Sharon's policies towards the Palestinians. "We are heading downhill towards near-catastrophe. If nothing happens and we go on living by the sword, we will continue to wallow in the mud and destroy ourselves." - Yaakov Peri, Shin Bet chief 1988-1995. Meanwhile Karmi Gilon, Shin Bet chief 1996-1996, criticized the government's strategy for handling the Palestinian uprising as being short-sighted. "It is dealing solely with the question of how to prevent the next terrorist attack. It ignores the question of how we get out of the mess we find ourselves in today." Avraham Shalom, Shin Bet chief from 1980-1986 said Israel is heading for disaster "if we do not recognize once and for all that there is another people which is suffering and towards which we are behaving shamefully." Ami Ayalon, Shin Bet chief from 1996-2000 said "We are taking sure, steady steps to a place where the State of Israel will no longer be a democracy and a home for the Jewish people."

• "Hans Blix had five months to find weapons. He found nothing. We've had five weeks. Come back to me in five months. If we haven't found any , we will have a credibility problem." - Charles Krauthammer, American Enterprise Institute, April 22nd, 2003.

• "The government takes care of women who have given birth to a lot of children as a way to thank them for their hard work... It is wrong for women who haven't had a single child to ask for taxpayer money when they get old, after having enjoyed their freedom and had fun." - former Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori of Japan in June '03, saying that women who don't have children should be denied pensions.

• "Why is George Bush in the White House? The majority of Americans did not vote for him. I tell you this morning that he's in the White House because God put him there." - Lieutenant-General William "Jerry" Boykin, Deputy Undersecretary of Defense. There was a ruckus when it was reported that when speaking at various evangelical churches Boykin had said "I knew my God was bigger than his God, and his was an idol" referring to a Muslim Somali warlord. In 2002 he showed another congregation a photograph of Mogadishu with a dark smudge on it, and said "Ladies and gentlemen, this is your enemy. It is a demonic presence in that city that God revealed to me."

• "One would hope to see such levels of propriety, lawfulness, and glasnost in many other regions." - unnamed Russian election official speaking of the vote in Chechnya, October 2003. In best "old" Soviet-style, the election reported 98% turnout even though most polling places were deserted, most candidates other than the "preferred" government candidate were forced out of the race, Russian troops stationed in the province were allowed to vote, all the government-owned media pushed one candidate, etc. A mere two weeks after President Bush made this statement about Russia: "A country in which democracy and the rule of law thrive."

• "... I don't know if we're going to find out the senior administration official... I have no idea whether we'll find out who the leaker is, partially because, in all due respect to your profession, you do a very good job of protecting the leakers..." - President Bush 10/7/03 when asked how confident he was that the FBI would be able to determine who had leaked the fact that ex-ambassador Joseph Wilson's wife was an undercover CIA officer. Hint, hint, wink, wink.

• "As the world's only superpower, largest economy, and most aggressive culture, the United States inevitably infringes on the attention and interests of other peoples and nations."- Newt Gingrich, in an article in the July/August 2003 edition of Foreign Policy (The Failure of U.S. Diplomacy).

• "I wouldn’t call it a failed test, because the intercept was not the primary objective... It’s still considered a success in that we gained great engineering data. We just don’t know why it didn’t hit." - Chris Taylor, Missile Defense Agency spokesman, after a missile interceptor fired from a U.S. Aegis destroyer failed to hit its target during a sea-based missile defense test. While the interceptor’s guidance system was activated, the interceptor failed to hit the target.

• "To announce that there must be no criticism of the president.. is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonous to the American public." - Teddy Roosevelt, in 1918 during the First World War.    "Too many people desire to suppress criticism simply because they think it will give some comfort to the enemy... if that comfort makes the enemy feel better for a few moments they are welcome to it.. because the maintenance of the right to criticism in the long run will do the country maintaining it a good deal more good than it will do the enemy." - Senator Robert A. Taft, after Pearl Harbor.

• ".. We have come here not as conquerors but as liberators to free you from generations of tyranny." - Lt. General Sir Stanley Maude in Baghdad, when Britain occupied Iraq - in 1917.

• "...I am strongly in favor of using poisoned gas against uncivilized tribes to spread a lively terror..." Winston Churchill, British Secretary of State for War and Air in the 20's, referring to tribes in Iraq. "The Arab and the Kurd now know what real bombing means - within 45 minutes a full-sized village can be practically wiped out, and a third of its inhabitants killed or injured, by four or five machines which offer them no real target, no opportunity for glory as warriors, no effective means of escape..." Squadron Leader Arthur Harris on British air power against Iraqi tribes. In 1920 there was an uprising of armed tribesmen against British occupation and the RAF flew sorties totaling 4,008 hours, dropping 97 tons of bombs, and firing 183,861 rounds, killing 9,000 Iraqis and crushing the rebellion.

• "There has been a lot of misunderstanding as to exactly what it was we expected to find and when we expected to find it...... The most fundamental, most important thing that was not destroyed (by the UN weapons inspectors)   was the intellectual capacity in Iraq to recreate systems of weapons of mass destruction." - John Bolton, Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Affairs. In the evolving list of reasons for why the war with Iraq was necessary, the latest is Iraq's "intellectual capacity" for producing WMD...

• "This is a tragedy that's happened as a result of the heat of war, as opposed to the callous murder and slaughter of the Iraqi people by Saddam Hussein." - U.K. Armed Forces Minister Adam Ingram.
  "In light of recent terrorist attacks by the Iraqi regime, the soldiers exercised considerable restraint to avoid the unnecessary loss of life." - U.S. Central Command communique.     Comments made after an incident at a checkpoint during which coalition forces opened fire on a van that did not stop, killing seven Iraqi women and children.

• "Yell If You Didn't Have Sex Last Night... That's What We Thought." One of several juvenile 'headlines' that scrolled on Fox's electronic news ticker mocking nearby anti-war protestors in New York City March 27th, 2003.. "Fair And Balanced" Journalism At Its Finest.

• "The Constitution just sets minimums. Most of the rights that you enjoy go way beyond what the Constitution requires." - Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. See Justice Scalia bans Media From Free Speech Ceremony"

• Prime Minister Blair: Adam.
  Reporter: "One question for you both. Do you believe that there is a link between Saddam Hussein, a direct link, and the men who attacked on September the 11th?"
  President Bush: "I can't make that claim."
  Prime Minister Blair: "That answers your question. The one thing I would say, however, is I've absolutely no doubt at all that unless we deal with both of these threats, they will come together in a deadly form." - From a White House press conference Jan 2003. Read the entire transcript here.

• "Fuck Saddam. we're taking him out." - President George Bush, March 2002. As reported in Time Magazine.

• "With lethal injection, only four people are required to execute the death penalty: one executioner, one member of the court, one from the procuratorate, and one forensic doctor. A dozen guards are also required to keep watch around the van. In contrast, many more guards are needed for firing squads, both around the site and along the route from the prison. If the case is well-known and complicated, security needs to be further enhanced and extra expenses are occurred." This from the Beijing Today newspaper (as reported by The Australian), which hailed as "a more humane method of dispatch" the introduction of 18 mobile execution vans in Yunnan province. March'03

• "Appropriate in stature, quick in movement and unafraid of hardship, Chinese astronauts are obviously superior." - Su Shuangning, head of China's space program, on Jan 6th 2003 at the European Internet Network.

• "We would be better off with only six million people... who support the liberation struggle... we don't want all these extra people" - Didymus Mutasa, Administrative Secretary of Robert Mugabe's ZANU-PF party. Under Mugabe Zimbabwe has morphed from being southern Africa's breadbasket to requiring emergency food deliveries from international charities to stave off hunger and starvation... This grain is distributed by the government, which gets it to the majority Shona but prevents the Matabele minority from receiving any of the aid. A humanitarian disaster is in the making... (Incidentally, Zimbabwe's population is 12 million.)

• "You must stop unmarried men and women who are together.. It is not only the business of the criminal branch and for Vice and Virtue - you must stop men and women who are unmarried from walking together on the streets. According to Islam, you are obliged to beat them" - Ismail Khan, governor of Herat in western Afghanistan, reportedly in a radio address. See the entry on the Heroes and Zeros page

• A Wall Street Journal article dated 11/26/2002 "Gonzales Rewrites Laws of War" discusses the role of White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales in the evolving legal strategy of the 'war on terrorism.' It argues he has "developed the underpinning for presidential orders creating military commissions, defining enemy combatants and dictating the status and rights of prisoners held from Afghanistan battles..." The WSJ has this passage: Mr. Gonzales readily admits the White House may lose some ground in court cases. While "being respectful" of constitutional rights, the administration's job ".. at the end of the day is to protect the country.",   Gonzales is quoted as saying. This sentiment is often heard in our political discourse. However Gonzales, as a lawyer in a prominent role in the administration and as one whose name has been mooted as a possible Supreme Court nominee, certainly should know better.... the President of the United States does not take an oath to defend the United States, he takes an oath to defend the constitution of the United States. See the Presidential Oath of Office.

• "I'm the commander, I do not need to explain why I say things. That's the interesting thing about being President. Maybe someone needs to explain to me why they say something, but I don't feel like I owe anybody an explanation....." - President Bush, in an interview conducted by Bob Woodward for 'The Washington Post', as reported in   The Independent   Nov'02.

• The thing America must know is that terrorism is alive and well. And it's our charge, our duty, this generation's historical opportunity, to rid the world of terrorism. And there's going to be some fantastic consequences from it, in my judgement." - President Bush, Newsweek, 12/03/2001.

© SNi 03/21/08