Year 2004 in Review
---------------------------------------
GEORGE W. BUSH: Since we last met in this chamber, combat forces of the
United States, Great Britain, Australia, Poland and other countries enforced
the demands of the United Nations, ended the rule of Saddam Hussein and the
people of Iraq are free. [1/21/04]
---------------------------------------
JOURNALIST: Governor Dean, why did you say in March, 2003, that Saddam
Hussein has weapons of mass destruction?
HOWARD DEAN: I thought he did.
JEREMY SCAHILL: What intelligence did you base that on?
HOWARD DEAN: I talked with people who were knowledgeable, including a series
of folks who worked for the Clinton Administration.
JOURNALIST: Were you wrong?
HOWARD DEAN: Maybe. I don't know. [1/27/04]
---------------------
JOURNALIST: Senator Kerry, quick question. You said Saddam Hussein was
developing nuclear weapons when other nations wouldn't try. What
intelligence was that based on?
JOHN KERRY: I don't know -- I don't know what quote you have. When did I say
that?
JOURNALIST: In October. You said he had chemical and biological weapons
JOHN KERRY: No, I never said he was developing nuclear.
JOURNALIST: You said "Why is Saddam Hussein attempting to develop nuclear
weapons, when most nations..."
JOHN KERRY: Attempting to, because he did. He did attempt to. [1/27/04]
---------------------
JOURNALIST: In Yugoslavia, you used cluster bombs and depleted uranium, and
I want to know if you are president, will you vow not to use them.
WESLEY CLARK: I will use whatever it takes that is legal to protect the men
and women in the US forces.
JOURNALIST: Even against civilians like in the Nis marketplace.
WESLEY CLARK: They were not used against civilians.
JOURNALIST: And why bomb Radio Television Serbia? Why did you bomb Radio
Television Serbia? You killed 16 media workers, sir. [1/26/04]
-------------------------------------
JOURNALIST: At this hour the streets of Port-au-Prince are barricaded.
President Aristide and his wife, Mildred Aristide are inside the palace,
armed gangs, paramilitaries are moving closer towards the capital of
Port-au-Prince. We turn to the palace, where I just got off the phone with
the First Lady of Haiti, Mildred Aristide.
MILDRED ARISTIDE: The situation is quite critical. The thugs and the FRAPH
and military who are heavily armed in the north are sending messages
repeatedly on the airwaves in Haiti that they stand ready at any moment to
storm Port-au-Prince. [2/28/04]
MAXINE WATERS: He [Aristide] was kidnapped. He said he was forced to leave
Haiti. [3/1/04]
JOURNALIST: Did US security forces kidnap Haitian President Aristide? We'll
speak with congress member Maxine Waters and Aristide's close friend,
TransAfrica founder, Randall Robinson.
RANDALL ROBINSON: He [Aristide] said, tell the world, it's a coup, it's a
coup, it's a coup. [3/1/04]
JOURNALIST: Representative Waters is claiming on Pacifica stations on the
west coast that Aristide was led away in handcuffs by US marines, and
claiming that the marines were part of a coup to remove him. I wonder if
either one of you gentlemen would comment on her comment or claim?
DONALD RUMSFELD: I'm trying to pick the right words. If you're asking me,
did that happen? The answer is no.
JOURNALIST: But any embellishment?
DONALD RUMSFELD: I think not today. [3/1/04]
JEAN-BERTRAND ARISTIDE: They forced me to leave Haiti -- it was a kidnapping
which they call a coup d'état of something which is for me. It was not a
resignation. It was a kidnapping under the cover of a coup d'état. [3/8/04]
-----------------------------------------
JOURNALIST: Ten US soldiers and at least 50 Iraqis were killed in one of the
most turbulent days yet in US occupied Iraq. The number of US troops killed
since Washington's invasion is now over 600, and the number of casualties in
just one year is an astonishing 12,000. That figure does not include a
hidden casualty that up until last week had gone unnoticed: exposure to
depleted uranium. Today, an explosive exposé by Juan Gonzalez, in the New
York Daily News.
JUAN GONZALEZ: Yes, our report which we have been working on for several
months found the first four of nine soldiers from the 442nd military police
of the New York National Guard, were found with depleted uranium,
contaminated with depleted uranium. They are the first confirmed cases of
inhaled depleted uranium exposure from the current Iraq conflict.
SGT. AGUSTIN MATOS: While I was out there, I experienced a fever one night.
Ways fine in the day. It hit me. It totally knocked me out. I was in bed. I
could not get out. I can't remember exactly what the fevers were. But I also
had -- I was urinating blood when I was out there. It wasn't good. It was
not a good place to be when you were sick like that.
U.S. SOLDIER: I was positive for 6.1 nanograms of uranium, and 6.0 nanograms
of -- what is that coralade [sic]. [4/5/04]
-----------------------------------------------
JOURNALIST: Former president Ronald Reagan dies at the age of 93. While most
of the country and media focus on Reagan the man, we'll look at policies and
history of the Reagan era. From Iran-Contra to nuclear weapons, to the
bloody conflicts in Central America. [6/7/04]
RONALD REAGAN: They are our brothers, these freedom fighters, and we owe
them our alliance. They are the moral equal of our founding fathers.
JOURNALIST: We begin with Father Miguel D'Escoto, a Catholic priest based in
Managua, Nicaragua. He was Nicaragua's Foreign Minister under the Sandinista
government in the 1980's.
FATHER MIGUEL D'ESCOTO: Reagan is now dead, and I for one, would like to say
only nice things about him. I'm not insensitive to the feelings of many US
people mourning President Reagan, but as much as I sincerely pray that god
in his infinite mercy and goodness forgive him for having been the butcher
of my people, for having been responsible for the deaths of some 50,000
Nicaraguans, we cannot and should not ever forget the crimes he committed.
[6/8/04]
RONALD REAGAN: I'm pleased to tell you today that I have signed legislation
that would outlaw Russia forever. We begin bombing in five minutes.
--------------------------------------
JOURNALIST: The U.S. occupation in Iraq is getting daily headlines around
the world, but a conflict that is rarely mentioned, especially by the U.S.
media is what's happening in the Sudan. What the U.N. calls a campaign of
ethnic cleansing, tens of thousands of black Africans have been slaughtered,
and some one million have fled their homes in the Sudan's Western Darfur
region after attacks by Arab militias armed by the Sudanese government.
JULIE FLINT: The facts speak for themselves. You have a massive tragedy. In
just a year, a million people displaced in a year. Those are huge numbers.
30,000, we're told, dead. The number is absolutely huge. The potential for
350,000 people to die this year. I don't give a damn whether you call it
ethnic cleansing or genocide. The international community has to do
something about this. [6/23/04]
-------------------------------------
JOURNALIST: In a rebuke to the Bush Administration, the Supreme Court has
ruled that while the executive branch technically has the power to designate
enemy combatants, prisoners have a right to challenge their detention in
court. In one opinion, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor wrote, "We have long
since made clear that the state of war is not a blank check for the
president when it comes to the rights of the nation's citizens." We're
joined now by Barbara Olshansky, to talk about these landmark rulings,
attorney with the Center for Constitution Rights. [6/29/04]
------------------------------------
MORDECHAI VANUNU: I am Mordechai Vanunu, the man behind the publicized
article from October 5, 1986, the article about Israel's nuclear weapons.
[8/18/04]
---------------------------------
JOURNALIST: One year after President Bush landed on an aircraft carrier with
a huge banner reading, "Mission Accomplished," imprisoned Iraqis are being
tortured and humiliated at the hands of U.S. troops. We'll speak with
Pulitzer Prize winning reporter, Seymour Hersh about another explosive
expose'.
SEYMOUR HERSH: It's a total war crime. It's a crime against humanity. It's a
crime against the Geneva convention. And -- and, of course, it's also
dangerous, in a rational world, to the presidency itself. Because if you
don't inflict values at the very beginning, you do end up, down the road,
with the kind of abuses we had. And that's, I think, the story in a
nutshell. Somebody who worked for Condoleezza Rice (these are -- I'm talking
about people in the White House) got in touch with me and told me that, in
fact, there had been a lot of concern about prisoner abuse much earlier. So,
what you have - if you want to talk about how Abu Ghraib began - what you
have is a attitude that these people are not humans. Dehumanization - we do
that in war all the time; but you also have an attitude that it doesn't
matter what you do. [9/14/04]
---------------------------------
ROBERT FISK: One thing that is happening on the ground is that the reporting
of Iraq has reached a point where hardly any journalists leave Baghdad and
some of them don't even leave their hotels. One of the reasons why the Bush
administration is getting away with so much at the moment is that the degree
of anarchy, the sheer size of the area of Iraq outside government or
American control is being hidden from ordinary people. We do not realize,
though we should, the degree to which the country of Iraq is outside the
control of the new American-established government of Iyad Allawi. You know,
we promised the people here democracy and we're giving them now martial law,
telephone tapping, mail opening, special raids on houses. Forget about
habeas corpus. The big problem at the moment is that the degree of violence
across the country is not getting across. [7/16/04]
-----------------------------------------
Condoleezza Rice testifies before the 9/11 Commission.
CONDOLEEZZA RICE: There was no silver bullet that could have prevented the
9/11 attacks.
RICHARD BEN-VENISTE: Isn't it a fact, Dr. Rice, that the August 6 p.d.b.
warned against possible attacks in this country; and I ask you whether you
recall the title of that p.d.b.?
CONDOLEEZZA RICE: I believe the title was, "Bin Laden determined to attack
inside the United States." [4/9/04]
---------------------------------------
JOURNALIST: We're talking about Nicholas Berg, beheaded in May in Iraq, and
we're talking with his father, Michael Berg.
MICHAEL BERG: The basic reason my son died is that George Bush and Donald
Rumsfeld have taken the arrogant position that they are the leaders of the
world, and that they can do anything they want to do. They've passed that
attitude down to the people who work for them, who have passed it down to
the people in the field, and that's why we have situations like Abu Ghraib.
But worse than that, we have the deterioration of our own constitutional
rights on our own soil, yet alone on soil in foreign country that once was
sovereign where we don't belong. And they just think that they can do
anything that they please and so far, they've gotten away with it very well.
[8/24/04]
---------------------------------------------
JOURNALIST: Two U.S. soldiers are seeking refugee status in Canada as
conscientious objectors. Jeremy Hinzman and Brandon Hughey arrived in
Ontario separately earlier this year hoping to make Canada their new home.
BRANDON HUEY: I wasn't naive to the fact that I could be deployed to fight
in a war; but I did have this image growing up that I would be sort of a
good guy, if you will, and fighting for just causes and fighting to defend
my country, and after I got out of basic training, and when I realized that
basically the U.S. had attacked a country that was no threat to them, in an
act of aggression, it shattered that myth
JEREMY HINSMAN: I was faced with the proposition of going to Iraq. And based
on all the pretenses and rationale that we, the U.S., gave for invading,
none of them held true. There were no weapons. There was no link between the
secular Ba'athists al Qaeda and fundamentalist Islamic terrorists and the
notion of installing a puppet regime doesn't really sound like democracy to
me. And I just couldn't bring myself to kill or be killed for the sake of
that. [10/15/04]
------------------------------------
***Conventions****
JOHN KERRY: I'm John Kerry and I'm reporting for duty.
BARRACK OBAMA: It's the hope of slaves sitting around a fire singing freedom
songs. The hope of immigrants setting out for distant shores. The hope of a
young, naval lieutenant, bravely patrolling the Mekong Delta. The hope of a
mill worker's son, who dares to defy the odds. The hope of a skinny kid with
a funny name, who believes that America has a place for him, too.
RUSS FEINGOLD: I regret that the Democratic platform says that the U.S.A.
PATRIOT Act is something that was okay. The Bush administration claims that
there's nothing wrong with the PATRIOT Act. The fact is that PATRIOT Act is
a terrible intrusion into the rights of every American.
ZELL MILLER: It is the soldier, not the reporter, who has given us the
freedom of the press. It is the soldier, not the poet, who has given us
freedom of speech. It is the soldier, not the agitator, who has given us the
freedom to protest! [9/2/04]
--------
MICHAEL MOORE: Last night I'm walking into the convention and I run into
Bill O'Reilly. But I asked him the question that I would like to ask George
W. Bush. The question I'd like to ask him is: Would he be willing to
sacrifice one of his daughters tonight o secure Fallujah? And that's what I
asked Bill O'Reilly. May we -- may we take the life of your child tonight so
that we could secure Fallujah? Would you do that, Bill?
--------
JOURNALIST: Hi, where are you from?
BILLY JACK HARLOW: From San Antonio.
JOURNALIST: What are your names?
BILLY JACK: Billy Jack and Therese Harlow.
JOURNALIST:Are you delegates?
BILLY JACK HARLOW: I'm an alternate delegate.
JOURNALIST: What did you think tonight?
BILLY JACK HARLOW: I thought Vice President Cheney was awesome. Sure did.
JOURNALIST: What most impressed you?
BILLY JACK HARLOW: I think his articulation of the facts, and George Bush's
convictions, and John Kerry's contradictions. I think he showed very
concisely the differences.
JOURNALIST: What are the differences?
BILLY JACK HARLOW: You know them as well as I do. The differences are George
Bush is really for the people, John Kerry is for whatever people are telling
him what to be for for that moment.
JOURNALIST: Do you think that George Bush and John Kerry are that different
in their attitudes to the invasion and occupation of Iraq?
BILLY JACK HARLOW:You watching the same TV I am? I'm guessing you might not
be, because there's a huge difference. John Kerry changes from whoever is
interviewing him to whoever is interviewing him. I don't change, and my
president doesn't change.
JOURNALIST: What do you watch?
BILLY JACK HARLOW:I watch FOX News. I don't know what you guys watch.
------------------------
RALPH NADER: Look at our media. Have we ever had more stations and cable
channels? Have we ever had less opportunity to speak in other than sound
bites heading for a decade of sound barks? After November 2, it's not the
end. It's just the end of the beginning. We'll continue out of the box
between now and inauguration... There will always be a least-worst between
the Democrats and Republicans, every four years, every two years. And
least-worst means that you exert no pull on the least-worst, and, therefore,
your own influence and your own impact is self-limited.
------------------------------------
JOHN EDWARDS: He voted against funding for meals on wheels for seniors. He
voted against a holiday for Martin Luther King. He voted against a
resolution calling for the release of Nelson Mandela in South Africa. It's
amazing to hear him criticize either my record or John Kerry's. [10/6/04]
***** CHENEY: Now, if they couldn't stand up to the pressures that Howard
Dean represented, how can we expect them to stand up to Al Qaeda? We've made
significant progress in Iraq. We've stood up a new government that's been in
power now only 90 days. [10/6/04]
------------------------------
***** CHENEY: I have not suggested there's a connection between Iraq and
9/11, but there's clearly an established Iraqi track record with terror.
[10/6/04]
--------------------------
JOURNALIST: Twelve-year marine veteran, Jimmy Massey joins us on the line
from North Carolina.
JIMMY MASSEY: I would say my platoon alone killed thirty-plus innocent
civilians.
JIMMY MASSEY: A car would roll up to our checkpoint. And prior while we were
still in Kuwait, we had actually made up Arabic road signs to place out in
front of our checkpoint area warning the Iraqis to slow down. That didn't
help. We would verbally tell them, 'stop' and we would fire a warning shot.
When we would light the cars up, you know, we would go through and search
the dead occupants as well as the vehicles, and we would find nothing that
directly linked them to any type of terrorists. They were just average
civilians that were trying to flee out of Iraq -- or excuse me -- out of
Baghdad, out of the city limits because of the invading American force. They
were scared. But with the intelligence reports that we were given, it was
very hard for us to distinguish the good guys from the bad guys. We
ultimately started looking at everybody in Iraq as a potential suicide
bomber or terrorist from women to children to old men. We didn't know who
the enemy was. [5/24/04]
------------------------------------
JOHN EDWARDS: It's been a long night, but we've waited four years for this
victory. We can wait one more night.
JOHN KERRY: We worked hard and we fought hard, and I wish that things had
turned out a little differently. America is in need of unity, and longing
for a larger measure of compassion. I hope President Bush will advance those
values in the coming years.
GEORGE W. BUSH: I earned capital in the campaign, political capital and now
I intend to spend it. It is my style. That's what happened after the 2000
election. I earned some capital. I have earned capital in this election, and
I'm going to spend it for what I -- what I told the people I would spend it
on. [11/5/04]
-----------------------------------
GEORGE W. BUSH: Our enemies are innovative and resourceful. And so are we.
They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people,
and neither do we.
-----------------------------------
JOURNALIST: President Bush nominated Condoleezza Rice yesterday as he
continues to reshape his cabinet for his second four-year term. The
controversy continues to rage over the fairness and accuracy of the November
2 presidential elections. Stories are still emerging from state like Ohio,
Florida, North Carolina, and New Mexico, of widespread problems with vote
counting, voter suppression and malfunctions of electronic voting machines.
Now, three candidates in the 2004 presidential race are demanding recounts.
Not one of them is John Kerry. We are joined right now by David Cobb, lawyer
from Texas, now lives in California, Green Party presidential candidate in
this election.
DAVID COBB: we will be demanding a full statewide recount of every ballot
cast that we can get our hands on in the state of Ohio. I want to stop for a
moment, back up and really give some context to this story, because
corporate media is attempting to manufacture consent around the lie that
this was a clean and fair election. The reality is that this was not a clean
and fair election. Far from it. There is a litany of problems, not only the
problems that you mentioned in terms of the voting equipment themselves, but
the clear and obvious civil rights and voting rights violations that
occurred in this election. [11/17/04]
------------------------------------------
JOHN ASHCROFT(singing): Only God, no other kiiiiiiiings, let the mighty
eagle sooooooooar. This country's far too young to diiiiiie....
JOURNALIST: John Ashcroft and Commerce Secretary Don Evans have both
announced they are resigning from President Bush's cabinet. Ashcroft was
widely criticized by civil liberties groups and seen as one of the most
divisive members of the Bush administration. He shepherded the USA PATRIOT
Act through Congress. He oversaw the detention of thousands of Arabs and
Muslims after September 11. In December 2001, he warned senators that
criticism of the government's tactics "only aids terrorists." And he
dismissed critics of the PATRIOT Act as "hysterics." We are joined now by
David Cole, Professor at Georgetown Law School.
DAVID COLE: I think it's safe to say that he's even worse as an attorney
general than he is as a singer. And that he has shown, you know, from day
one, really, and even before day one, an absolute tin ear for the
constitutional freedoms and principles that this country is based upon.
[11/10/04]
JOURNALIST: The funeral of Yasser Arafat is underway. A helicopter carrying
the body of the Palestinian leader has landed at the West Bank headquarters
compound in Ramallah where he spent his final years as a virtual prisoner.
[...] We have just reached Kristen Ess on the line in Ramallah, who is a
reporter for the website PalestineNet.Org. I want to just get a description
of what is happening there now, the funeral for Yasser Arafat currently
underway.
KRISTEN ESS: There are thousands of people who have crammed through every
gate that they could get through, to try to walk with the coffin of Arafat
when it was airlifted in.It's just been a really hard time for everyone, and
at the same time, the Israeli military has continued its invasions of the
West Bank and Gaza Strip, not giving anyone a break. [11/12/04]
---------------------------------------------
JOURNALIST: An NBC cameraman has caught on videotape a U.S. Marine shooting
dead an unarmed and wounded Iraqi prisoner in a mosque in Fallujah.
---------------------------------------------
RICHARD CLARKE: You may remember Fallujah; it was the city that we had to
liberate in order to hold elections. If anyone has seen film of Fallujah
since we liberated it, and film of inside Fallujah is very hard to get
because the United States Military is not allowing journalists in very much.
But some film has made its way out of Fallujah. Fallujah might participate
in an election in January, but not in January of 2005. In order to liberate
the city to hold an election we destroyed the city where 300,000 people had
called their home. [12/8/04]
--------------------------------------------
LES ROBERTS: So that 100,000 estimate [of dead Iraqis] that you heard was
taking the 32 neighborhoods excluding Fallujah because it was so weird and
so bad and saying, if these 32 neighborhoods represent the whole country of
Iraq, and we worked very hard to take a sample that did, we believe
approximately 100,000 people died. So that's why in our report, we said, we
think that the number is around 100,000, at least, but it could be much
higher. We say it could be much higher because we excluded that Fallujah
number. [11/1/04]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
MARGARET HASSAN: Please help me. This might be my last hours. Please help
me. Please, the British people, ask Mr. Blair to take the troops out of
Iraq.
TAHSIN HASSAN: I am Tahsin Hassan, husband of Margaret Hassan. I have been
told that there is a video of Margaret, which appears to show her murder.
The video may be genuine, but I do not know. I beg those people who took
Margaret to tell me what they have done with her. [11/17/04]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
MARK BENJAMIN: As of mid-September, if you take actually Afghanistan and
Iraq together, there were 17,000 soldiers who were injured or ill enough to
be put on airplanes and flown out of theater, and none of those
casualties -- and I call them casualties, because they fit the Pentagon's
definition of casualties -- none of those casualties appear on any public
casualty list. [11/10/04]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
DONALD RUMSFELD: I, and I know others, stay awake at night with concern for
those at risk, with hope for their lives, for their success, and I want
those who matter most, the men and women in uniform and their families, to
know that. [12/23/04]
--------------------------------------
OLE DANBOLT MJOES: The Norwegian Nobel Committee has decided to awards the
Nobel Peace Prize for 2004 to Wangari Matthai for her contribution to
sustainable development, democracy and peace. [10/8/04]
WANGARI MAATHAI: As the first African woman to receive this prize, I accept
it on behalf of the people of Kenya and Africa, and indeed, the whole world.
[12/10/04]
--------------------------------------
JOURNALIST: The death toll from Sunday's devastating tsunamis in the Indian
Ocean has now topped 40,000. It's expected to grow higher. [12/28/04]
JOURNALIST: The death toll has topped 100,000 in Asia and East Africa. The
World Health Organization is warning that the spread of disease,
specifically malaria and cholera could end up killing tens of thousands more
people.
ENELE SOPOAGA: Had the people been more prepared, we wouldn't be talking
about losses of lives by now. It's -- it's so ironic that we -- at this age
we are talking about gadgets, technological gadgets and all sorts of
innovations that we have not put in place the capacity to address the
vulnerability of these island countries and poor countries in the Indian
Ocean. We should be ashamed of ourselves. We should be ashamed. The world
should be ashamed of itself, to living parts of the islands of the world,
particularly those are most vulnerable at this level of situation.
----------------------------------------
(Content from DemocracyNow.org with some Editing from MonsieurStat)
Video with actual footages available at :
http://play.rbn.com/?url=demnow/demnow/demand/2004/dec/audio/dn20041230.ra&proto=rtsp
Or from DemocracyNow website at :
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=04/12/30/1452207
Happy New Year All,
Stat.
.
|
|
| User: "TaDa Pope" |
|
| Title: Re: Year 2004 in Review |
31 Dec 2004 07:02:54 PM |
|
|
Subject: Year 2004 in Review
From: "MonsieurStat"
Date: 12/31/2004 11:24 AM Pacific Standard Time
Message-id: <OHhBd.55555$Tn1.1909053@news20.bellglobal.com>
Year 2004 in Review
---------------------------------------
GEORGE W. BUSH: Since we last met in this chamber, combat forces of the
United States, Great Britain, Australia, Poland and other countries enforced
the demands of the United Nations, ended the rule of Saddam Hussein and the
people of Iraq are free. [1/21/04]
---------------------------------------
JOURNALIST: Governor Dean, why did you say in March, 2003, that Saddam
Hussein has weapons of mass destruction?
HOWARD DEAN: I thought he did.
JEREMY SCAHILL: What intelligence did you base that on?
HOWARD DEAN: I talked with people who were knowledgeable, including a series
of folks who worked for the Clinton Administration.
JOURNALIST: Were you wrong?
HOWARD DEAN: Maybe. I don't know. [1/27/04]
---------------------
JOURNALIST: Senator Kerry, quick question. You said Saddam Hussein was
developing nuclear weapons when other nations wouldn't try. What
intelligence was that based on?
JOHN KERRY: I don't know -- I don't know what quote you have. When did I say
that?
JOURNALIST: In October. You said he had chemical and biological weapons
JOHN KERRY: No, I never said he was developing nuclear.
JOURNALIST: You said "Why is Saddam Hussein attempting to develop nuclear
weapons, when most nations..."
JOHN KERRY: Attempting to, because he did. He did attempt to. [1/27/04]
---------------------
JOURNALIST: In Yugoslavia, you used cluster bombs and depleted uranium, and
I want to know if you are president, will you vow not to use them.
WESLEY CLARK: I will use whatever it takes that is legal to protect the men
and women in the US forces.
JOURNALIST: Even against civilians like in the Nis marketplace.
WESLEY CLARK: They were not used against civilians.
JOURNALIST: And why bomb Radio Television Serbia? Why did you bomb Radio
Television Serbia? You killed 16 media workers, sir. [1/26/04]
-------------------------------------
JOURNALIST: At this hour the streets of Port-au-Prince are barricaded.
President Aristide and his wife, Mildred Aristide are inside the palace,
armed gangs, paramilitaries are moving closer towards the capital of
Port-au-Prince. We turn to the palace, where I just got off the phone with
the First Lady of Haiti, Mildred Aristide.
MILDRED ARISTIDE: The situation is quite critical. The thugs and the FRAPH
and military who are heavily armed in the north are sending messages
repeatedly on the airwaves in Haiti that they stand ready at any moment to
storm Port-au-Prince. [2/28/04]
MAXINE WATERS: He [Aristide] was kidnapped. He said he was forced to leave
Haiti. [3/1/04]
JOURNALIST: Did US security forces kidnap Haitian President Aristide? We'll
speak with congress member Maxine Waters and Aristide's close friend,
TransAfrica founder, Randall Robinson.
RANDALL ROBINSON: He [Aristide] said, tell the world, it's a coup, it's a
coup, it's a coup. [3/1/04]
JOURNALIST: Representative Waters is claiming on Pacifica stations on the
west coast that Aristide was led away in handcuffs by US marines, and
claiming that the marines were part of a coup to remove him. I wonder if
either one of you gentlemen would comment on her comment or claim?
DONALD RUMSFELD: I'm trying to pick the right words. If you're asking me,
did that happen? The answer is no.
JOURNALIST: But any embellishment?
DONALD RUMSFELD: I think not today. [3/1/04]
JEAN-BERTRAND ARISTIDE: They forced me to leave Haiti -- it was a kidnapping
which they call a coup d'état of something which is for me. It was not a
resignation. It was a kidnapping under the cover of a coup d'état. [3/8/04]
-----------------------------------------
JOURNALIST: Ten US soldiers and at least 50 Iraqis were killed in one of the
most turbulent days yet in US occupied Iraq. The number of US troops killed
since Washington's invasion is now over 600, and the number of casualties in
just one year is an astonishing 12,000. That figure does not include a
hidden casualty that up until last week had gone unnoticed: exposure to
depleted uranium. Today, an explosive exposé by Juan Gonzalez, in the New
York Daily News.
JUAN GONZALEZ: Yes, our report which we have been working on for several
months found the first four of nine soldiers from the 442nd military police
of the New York National Guard, were found with depleted uranium,
contaminated with depleted uranium. They are the first confirmed cases of
inhaled depleted uranium exposure from the current Iraq conflict.
SGT. AGUSTIN MATOS: While I was out there, I experienced a fever one night.
Ways fine in the day. It hit me. It totally knocked me out. I was in bed. I
could not get out. I can't remember exactly what the fevers were. But I also
had -- I was urinating blood when I was out there. It wasn't good. It was
not a good place to be when you were sick like that.
U.S. SOLDIER: I was positive for 6.1 nanograms of uranium, and 6.0 nanograms
of -- what is that coralade [sic]. [4/5/04]
-----------------------------------------------
JOURNALIST: Former president Ronald Reagan dies at the age of 93. While most
of the country and media focus on Reagan the man, we'll look at policies and
history of the Reagan era. From Iran-Contra to nuclear weapons, to the
bloody conflicts in Central America. [6/7/04]
RONALD REAGAN: They are our brothers, these freedom fighters, and we owe
them our alliance. They are the moral equal of our founding fathers.
JOURNALIST: We begin with Father Miguel D'Escoto, a Catholic priest based in
Managua, Nicaragua. He was Nicaragua's Foreign Minister under the Sandinista
government in the 1980's.
FATHER MIGUEL D'ESCOTO: Reagan is now dead, and I for one, would like to say
only nice things about him. I'm not insensitive to the feelings of many US
people mourning President Reagan, but as much as I sincerely pray that god
in his infinite mercy and goodness forgive him for having been the butcher
of my people, for having been responsible for the deaths of some 50,000
Nicaraguans, we cannot and should not ever forget the crimes he committed.
[6/8/04]
RONALD REAGAN: I'm pleased to tell you today that I have signed legislation
that would outlaw Russia forever. We begin bombing in five minutes.
--------------------------------------
JOURNALIST: The U.S. occupation in Iraq is getting daily headlines around
the world, but a conflict that is rarely mentioned, especially by the U.S.
media is what's happening in the Sudan. What the U.N. calls a campaign of
ethnic cleansing, tens of thousands of black Africans have been slaughtered,
and some one million have fled their homes in the Sudan's Western Darfur
region after attacks by Arab militias armed by the Sudanese government.
JULIE FLINT: The facts speak for themselves. You have a massive tragedy. In
just a year, a million people displaced in a year. Those are huge numbers.
30,000, we're told, dead. The number is absolutely huge. The potential for
350,000 people to die this year. I don't give a damn whether you call it
ethnic cleansing or genocide. The international community has to do
something about this. [6/23/04]
-------------------------------------
JOURNALIST: In a rebuke to the Bush Administration, the Supreme Court has
ruled that while the executive branch technically has the power to designate
enemy combatants, prisoners have a right to challenge their detention in
court. In one opinion, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor wrote, "We have long
since made clear that the state of war is not a blank check for the
president when it comes to the rights of the nation's citizens." We're
joined now by Barbara Olshansky, to talk about these landmark rulings,
attorney with the Center for Constitution Rights. [6/29/04]
------------------------------------
MORDECHAI VANUNU: I am Mordechai Vanunu, the man behind the publicized
article from October 5, 1986, the article about Israel's nuclear weapons.
[8/18/04]
---------------------------------
JOURNALIST: One year after President Bush landed on an aircraft carrier with
a huge banner reading, "Mission Accomplished," imprisoned Iraqis are being
tortured and humiliated at the hands of U.S. troops. We'll speak with
Pulitzer Prize winning reporter, Seymour Hersh about another explosive
expose'.
SEYMOUR HERSH: It's a total war crime. It's a crime against humanity. It's a
crime against the Geneva convention. And -- and, of course, it's also
dangerous, in a rational world, to the presidency itself. Because if you
don't inflict values at the very beginning, you do end up, down the road,
with the kind of abuses we had. And that's, I think, the story in a
nutshell. Somebody who worked for Condoleezza Rice (these are -- I'm talking
about people in the White House) got in touch with me and told me that, in
fact, there had been a lot of concern about prisoner abuse much earlier. So,
what you have - if you want to talk about how Abu Ghraib began - what you
have is a attitude that these people are not humans. Dehumanization - we do
that in war all the time; but you also have an attitude that it doesn't
matter what you do. [9/14/04]
---------------------------------
ROBERT FISK: One thing that is happening on the ground is that the reporting
of Iraq has reached a point where hardly any journalists leave Baghdad and
some of them don't even leave their hotels. One of the reasons why the Bush
administration is getting away with so much at the moment is that the degree
of anarchy, the sheer size of the area of Iraq outside government or
American control is being hidden from ordinary people. We do not realize,
though we should, the degree to which the country of Iraq is outside the
control of the new American-established government of Iyad Allawi. You know,
we promised the people here democracy and we're giving them now martial law,
telephone tapping, mail opening, special raids on houses. Forget about
habeas corpus. The big problem at the moment is that the degree of violence
across the country is not getting across. [7/16/04]
-----------------------------------------
Condoleezza Rice testifies before the 9/11 Commission.
CONDOLEEZZA RICE: There was no silver bullet that could have prevented the
9/11 attacks.
RICHARD BEN-VENISTE: Isn't it a fact, Dr. Rice, that the August 6 p.d.b.
warned against possible attacks in this country; and I ask you whether you
recall the title of that p.d.b.?
CONDOLEEZZA RICE: I believe the title was, "Bin Laden determined to attack
inside the United States." [4/9/04]
---------------------------------------
JOURNALIST: We're talking about Nicholas Berg, beheaded in May in Iraq, and
we're talking with his father, Michael Berg.
MICHAEL BERG: The basic reason my son died is that George Bush and Donald
Rumsfeld have taken the arrogant position that they are the leaders of the
world, and that they can do anything they want to do. They've passed that
attitude down to the people who work for them, who have passed it down to
the people in the field, and that's why we have situations like Abu Ghraib.
But worse than that, we have the deterioration of our own constitutional
rights on our own soil, yet alone on soil in foreign country that once was
sovereign where we don't belong. And they just think that they can do
anything that they please and so far, they've gotten away with it very well.
[8/24/04]
---------------------------------------------
JOURNALIST: Two U.S. soldiers are seeking refugee status in Canada as
conscientious objectors. Jeremy Hinzman and Brandon Hughey arrived in
Ontario separately earlier this year hoping to make Canada their new home.
BRANDON HUEY: I wasn't naive to the fact that I could be deployed to fight
in a war; but I did have this image growing up that I would be sort of a
good guy, if you will, and fighting for just causes and fighting to defend
my country, and after I got out of basic training, and when I realized that
basically the U.S. had attacked a country that was no threat to them, in an
act of aggression, it shattered that myth
JEREMY HINSMAN: I was faced with the proposition of going to Iraq. And based
on all the pretenses and rationale that we, the U.S., gave for invading,
none of them held true. There were no weapons. There was no link between the
secular Ba'athists al Qaeda and fundamentalist Islamic terrorists and the
notion of installing a puppet regime doesn't really sound like democracy to
me. And I just couldn't bring myself to kill or be killed for the sake of
that. [10/15/04]
------------------------------------
***Conventions****
JOHN KERRY: I'm John Kerry and I'm reporting for duty.
BARRACK OBAMA: It's the hope of slaves sitting around a fire singing freedom
songs. The hope of immigrants setting out for distant shores. The hope of a
young, naval lieutenant, bravely patrolling the Mekong Delta. The hope of a
mill worker's son, who dares to defy the odds. The hope of a skinny kid with
a funny name, who believes that America has a place for him, too.
RUSS FEINGOLD: I regret that the Democratic platform says that the U.S.A.
PATRIOT Act is something that was okay. The Bush administration claims that
there's nothing wrong with the PATRIOT Act. The fact is that PATRIOT Act is
a terrible intrusion into the rights of every American.
ZELL MILLER: It is the soldier, not the reporter, who has given us the
freedom of the press. It is the soldier, not the poet, who has given us
freedom of speech. It is the soldier, not the agitator, who has given us the
freedom to protest! [9/2/04]
--------
MICHAEL MOORE: Last night I'm walking into the convention and I run into
Bill O'Reilly. But I asked him the question that I would like to ask George
W. Bush. The question I'd like to ask him is: Would he be willing to
sacrifice one of his daughters tonight o secure Fallujah? And that's what I
asked Bill O'Reilly. May we -- may we take the life of your child tonight so
that we could secure Fallujah? Would you do that, Bill?
--------
JOURNALIST: Hi, where are you from?
BILLY JACK HARLOW: From San Antonio.
JOURNALIST: What are your names?
BILLY JACK: Billy Jack and Therese Harlow.
JOURNALIST:Are you delegates?
BILLY JACK HARLOW: I'm an alternate delegate.
JOURNALIST: What did you think tonight?
BILLY JACK HARLOW: I thought Vice President Cheney was awesome. Sure did.
JOURNALIST: What most impressed you?
BILLY JACK HARLOW: I think his articulation of the facts, and George Bush's
convictions, and John Kerry's contradictions. I think he showed very
concisely the differences.
JOURNALIST: What are the differences?
BILLY JACK HARLOW: You know them as well as I do. The differences are George
Bush is really for the people, John Kerry is for whatever people are telling
him what to be for for that moment.
JOURNALIST: Do you think that George Bush and John Kerry are that different
in their attitudes to the invasion and occupation of Iraq?
BILLY JACK HARLOW:You watching the same TV I am? I'm guessing you might not
be, because there's a huge difference. John Kerry changes from whoever is
interviewing him to whoever is interviewing him. I don't change, and my
president doesn't change.
JOURNALIST: What do you watch?
BILLY JACK HARLOW:I watch FOX News. I don't know what you guys watch.
------------------------
RALPH NADER: Look at our media. Have we ever had more stations and cable
channels? Have we ever had less opportunity to speak in other than sound
bites heading for a decade of sound barks? After November 2, it's not the
end. It's just the end of the beginning. We'll continue out of the box
between now and inauguration... There will always be a least-worst between
the Democrats and Republicans, every four years, every two years. And
least-worst means that you exert no pull on the least-worst, and, therefore,
your own influence and your own impact is self-limited.
------------------------------------
JOHN EDWARDS: He voted against funding for meals on wheels for seniors. He
voted against a holiday for Martin Luther King. He voted against a
resolution calling for the release of Nelson Mandela in South Africa. It's
amazing to hear him criticize either my record or John Kerry's. [10/6/04]
***** CHENEY: Now, if they couldn't stand up to the pressures that Howard
Dean represented, how can we expect them to stand up to Al Qaeda? We've made
significant progress in Iraq. We've stood up a new government that's been in
power now only 90 days. [10/6/04]
------------------------------
***** CHENEY: I have not suggested there's a connection between Iraq and
9/11, but there's clearly an established Iraqi track record with terror.
[10/6/04]
--------------------------
JOURNALIST: Twelve-year marine veteran, Jimmy Massey joins us on the line
from North Carolina.
JIMMY MASSEY: I would say my platoon alone killed thirty-plus innocent
civilians.
JIMMY MASSEY: A car would roll up to our checkpoint. And prior while we were
still in Kuwait, we had actually made up Arabic road signs to place out in
front of our checkpoint area warning the Iraqis to slow down. That didn't
help. We would verbally tell them, 'stop' and we would fire a warning shot.
When we would light the cars up, you know, we would go through and search
the dead occupants as well as the vehicles, and we would find nothing that
directly linked them to any type of terrorists. They were just average
civilians that were trying to flee out of Iraq -- or excuse me -- out of
Baghdad, out of the city limits because of the invading American force. They
were scared. But with the intelligence reports that we were given, it was
very hard for us to distinguish the good guys from the bad guys. We
ultimately started looking at everybody in Iraq as a potential suicide
bomber or terrorist from women to children to old men. We didn't know who
the enemy was. [5/24/04]
------------------------------------
JOHN EDWARDS: It's been a long night, but we've waited four years for this
victory. We can wait one more night.
JOHN KERRY: We worked hard and we fought hard, and I wish that things had
turned out a little differently. America is in need of unity, and longing
for a larger measure of compassion. I hope President Bush will advance those
values in the coming years.
GEORGE W. BUSH: I earned capital in the campaign, political capital and now
I intend to spend it. It is my style. That's what happened after the 2000
election. I earned some capital. I have earned capital in this election, and
I'm going to spend it for what I -- what I told the people I would spend it
on. [11/5/04]
-----------------------------------
GEORGE W. BUSH: Our enemies are innovative and resourceful. And so are we.
They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people,
and neither do we.
-----------------------------------
JOURNALIST: President Bush nominated Condoleezza Rice yesterday as he
continues to reshape his cabinet for his second four-year term. The
controversy continues to rage over the fairness and accuracy of the November
2 presidential elections. Stories are still emerging from state like Ohio,
Florida, North Carolina, and New Mexico, of widespread problems with vote
counting, voter suppression and malfunctions of electronic voting machines.
Now, three candidates in the 2004 presidential race are demanding recounts.
Not one of them is John Kerry. We are joined right now by David Cobb, lawyer
from Texas, now lives in California, Green Party presidential candidate in
this election.
DAVID COBB: we will be demanding a full statewide recount of every ballot
cast that we can get our hands on in the state of Ohio. I want to stop for a
moment, back up and really give some context to this story, because
corporate media is attempting to manufacture consent around the lie that
this was a clean and fair election. The reality is that this was not a clean
and fair election. Far from it. There is a litany of problems, not only the
problems that you mentioned in terms of the voting equipment themselves, but
the clear and obvious civil rights and voting rights violations that
occurred in this election. [11/17/04]
------------------------------------------
JOHN ASHCROFT(singing): Only God, no other kiiiiiiiings, let the mighty
eagle sooooooooar. This country's far too young to diiiiiie....
JOURNALIST: John Ashcroft and Commerce Secretary Don Evans have both
announced they are resigning from President Bush's cabinet. Ashcroft was
widely criticized by civil liberties groups and seen as one of the most
divisive members of the Bush administration. He shepherded the USA PATRIOT
Act through Congress. He oversaw the detention of thousands of Arabs and
Muslims after September 11. In December 2001, he warned senators that
criticism of the government's tactics "only aids terrorists." And he
dismissed critics of the PATRIOT Act as "hysterics." We are joined now by
David Cole, Professor at Georgetown Law School.
DAVID COLE: I think it's safe to say that he's even worse as an attorney
general than he is as a singer. And that he has shown, you know, from day
one, really, and even before day one, an absolute tin ear for the
constitutional freedoms and principles that this country is based upon.
[11/10/04]
JOURNALIST: The funeral of Yasser Arafat is underway. A helicopter carrying
the body of the Palestinian leader has landed at the West Bank headquarters
compound in Ramallah where he spent his final years as a virtual prisoner.
[...] We have just reached Kristen Ess on the line in Ramallah, who is a
reporter for the website PalestineNet.Org. I want to just get a description
of what is happening there now, the funeral for Yasser Arafat currently
underway.
KRISTEN ESS: There are thousands of people who have crammed through every
gate that they could get through, to try to walk with the coffin of Arafat
when it was airlifted in.It's just been a really hard time for everyone, and
at the same time, the Israeli military has continued its invasions of the
West Bank and Gaza Strip, not giving anyone a break. [11/12/04]
---------------------------------------------
JOURNALIST: An NBC cameraman has caught on videotape a U.S. Marine shooting
dead an unarmed and wounded Iraqi prisoner in a mosque in Fallujah.
---------------------------------------------
RICHARD CLARKE: You may remember Fallujah; it was the city that we had to
liberate in order to hold elections. If anyone has seen film of Fallujah
since we liberated it, and film of inside Fallujah is very hard to get
because the United States Military is not allowing journalists in very much.
But some film has made its way out of Fallujah. Fallujah might participate
in an election in January, but not in January of 2005. In order to liberate
the city to hold an election we destroyed the city where 300,000 people had
called their home. [12/8/04]
--------------------------------------------
LES ROBERTS: So that 100,000 estimate [of dead Iraqis] that you heard was
taking the 32 neighborhoods excluding Fallujah because it was so weird and
so bad and saying, if these 32 neighborhoods represent the whole country of
Iraq, and we worked very hard to take a sample that did, we believe
approximately 100,000 people died. So that's why in our report, we said, we
think that the number is around 100,000, at least, but it could be much
higher. We say it could be much higher because we excluded that Fallujah
number. [11/1/04]
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
-------
MARGARET HASSAN: Please help me. This might be my last hours. Please help
me. Please, the British people, ask Mr. Blair to take the troops out of
Iraq.
TAHSIN HASSAN: I am Tahsin Hassan, husband of Margaret Hassan. I have been
told that there is a video of Margaret, which appears to show her murder.
The video may be genuine, but I do not know. I beg those people who took
Margaret to tell me what they have done with her. [11/17/04]
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
-------
MARK BENJAMIN: As of mid-September, if you take actually Afghanistan and
Iraq together, there were 17,000 soldiers who were injured or ill enough to
be put on airplanes and flown out of theater, and none of those
casualties -- and I call them casualties, because they fit the Pentagon's
definition of casualties -- none of those casualties appear on any public
casualty list. [11/10/04]
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
-------
DONALD RUMSFELD: I, and I know others, stay awake at night with concern for
those at risk, with hope for their lives, for their success, and I want
those who matter most, the men and women in uniform and their families, to
know that. [12/23/04]
--------------------------------------
OLE DANBOLT MJOES: The Norwegian Nobel Committee has decided to awards the
Nobel Peace Prize for 2004 to Wangari Matthai for her contribution to
sustainable development, democracy and peace. [10/8/04]
WANGARI MAATHAI: As the first African woman to receive this prize, I accept
it on behalf of the people of Kenya and Africa, and indeed, the whole world.
[12/10/04]
--------------------------------------
JOURNALIST: The death toll from Sunday's devastating tsunamis in the Indian
Ocean has now topped 40,000. It's expected to grow higher. [12/28/04]
JOURNALIST: The death toll has topped 100,000 in Asia and East Africa. The
World Health Organization is warning that the spread of disease,
specifically malaria and cholera could end up killing tens of thousands more
people.
ENELE SOPOAGA: Had the people been more prepared, we wouldn't be talking
about losses of lives by now. It's -- it's so ironic that we -- at this age
we are talking about gadgets, technological gadgets and all sorts of
innovations that we have not put in place the capacity to address the
vulnerability of these island countries and poor countries in the Indian
Ocean. We should be ashamed of ourselves. We should be ashamed. The world
should be ashamed of itself, to living parts of the islands of the world,
particularly those are most vulnerable at this level of situation.
----------------------------------------
(Content from DemocracyNow.org with some Editing from MonsieurStat)
Video with actual footages available at :
http://play.rbn.com/?url=demnow/demnow/demand/2004/dec/audio/dn20041230.r
a&proto=rtsp
Or from DemocracyNow website at :
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=04/12/30/1452207
Happy New Year All,
Stat.
Enessa Qua Onnica!
Tangents are infinite in all of nature in
all universes constantly and at random.
* D OUOSVAVV M *
*PUBLIUS ENIGMA*
Oh Joy!
Tom
The Psychedelic Pope
Patron Saint of the Internet
http://www.apple2.org.za/gswv/me/
.
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