posted on October 14, 2002 06:20:58 AM new
Ordinarily, this letter would be appropriate. But coming from an administration responsible for recently killing thousands of innocent people in Afghanistan and with plans to kill thousands in Iraq, this letter is sheer hypocrisy. Could it be that Israel is becoming too independent and posing an obstacle to George's war with Iraq?
JERUSALEM, Oct. 13 — In a message to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon before his planned visit to Washington this week, the Bush administration has criticized Israel for killing Palestinian civilians during its military operations and for maintaining crippling restrictions on movement in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip
The letter, delivered on Friday by the American ambassador to Israel, Daniel C. Kurtzer, was reported today in the local press and confirmed by senior Israeli officials; it followed similar expressions made publicly by Washington last week.
More Palestinian civilian deaths were reported today. A 3-year-old boy was killed during an Israeli Army raid in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip in which a militant was also killed, and a woman was fatally shot near Jenin in the West Bank when soldiers opened fire on a taxi, Palestinians said.
The army said it was investigating the fatal shooting of a 60-year-old woman on Friday as she sat on the veranda of her house in the West Bank city of Nablus. Her son, who witnessed the shooting, said a soldier in a jeep had fired at the house without provocation.
In other violence today, two Palestinian gunmen who infiltrated Israel from Egypt were shot and killed by Israeli soldiers. In Bethlehem, an explosion near a public phone killed a local militant, and Palestinians said Israel was responsible.
The American message to Mr. Sharon expressed deep concern over what it described as a significant increase in Palestinian civilian deaths during recent Israeli Army operations. It asserted that Israel had failed to keep promises to ease restrictions on the movements of ordinary Palestinians hemmed in by checkpoints and blockades of cities and villages.
At the weekly meeting of his cabinet today, Mr. Sharon said that "Israel has great interest in easing conditions for Palestinians who are not involved in terrorism," but that by failing to crack down on militants "the Palestinian Authority does not enable Israel to move ahead with this policy as it wishes," a cabinet statement said.
A senior Israeli official said the American message repeated public expressions of American concern after an Israeli raid on the Gaza Strip town of Khan Yunis last week in which 17 Palestinians were killed and scores wounded.
posted on October 14, 2002 07:05:40 AM new
But where is the concern for these casualties?
"From last October through the battle of Shah-i-Kot in March, the U.S. dropped around 20,000 bombs on Afghanistan. Pentagon officials privately acknowledge that the bombings probably killed hundreds of Afghan civilians; Afghan officials and U.S. aid workers in Kabul claim as many as 3,000 civilians died."
" Apart from their outrage at U.S. mistakes, Afghan civilians are frustrated by the plodding pace of the international relief effort. Washington has committed $280 million to Afghanistan this year — more than any other donor country — but aside from the yellow food packets dropped by allied warplanes during the war, ordinary Afghans have seen few tangible signs of the anticipated U.S. assistance. Because the Pentagon wants to maintain the combat readiness of American forces in order to launch search-and-destroy missions against remnant enemy targets, U.S. soldiers don't mix much with the civilian population. The U.S. has devoted just $16 million over two years to civilian projects such as school reconstruction and well digging, and most American troops are instructed to stay at the large U.S. bases rather than venture into Afghan villages."
posted on October 14, 2002 10:34:01 AM new"But where is the concern for these casualties?"
That falls under the 'price for peace' clause Helen. Get with the program! According to Bush, more people would have been killed under Taliban rule than the U.S. killed in Afghanistan, so they're better off. That'll apply to Iraq, Iran, North Korea.... whoever the U.S. goes after. I'm feeling safer... aren't you???
