World
leaders demonstrate their keen sense of diplomacy
World
leaders demonstrate their keen sense of diplomacy
F News realizes that its primary audience,
the SAIC community, does not always have time to read the
newspaper or scan the international press online every day.
Important things like working in one’s studio, burying
oneself in piles of post-modernist theory, and watching reality
TV sometimes pushes aside one’s awareness of the outside
world. So in an effort to help its readers be ready with fodder
for political banter at dinner parties, F News has found the
following gems from our world’s leaders regarding important
current issues:
“In regard to the unauthorized outposts, I want to reiterate
that Israel is a society governed by the rule of law. Thus,
we will immediately begin to remove unauthorized outposts.”
— Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon at the Aqaba summit
on June 4. Sharon is addressing the issue of Jewish outposts
in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, outlawed by international
law and condemned by every country but the U.S. and Micronesia.
However, in the last month, Israel announced plans for 600
new homes in the West Bank, in direct contradiction to what
was said during the Aqaba settlement.
“We do not build new Jewish communities in Samaria,
Judea and Gaza. The United States has never accepted our building
of communities or of the fence. Yet, I’ve managed to
develop relations between Israel and the United States even
though President Bush never supported settlements. I know
that the United States doesn’t like them; and the United
States knows our position on these issues.”
— Ariel Sharon to conservative commentator Cal Thomas,
Oct. 12. Samaria and Judea refer to the Palestinian West Bank.
“That’s the same map I’ve seen every time
I’ve visited Arik [Ariel Sharon] since 1978. He told
me he’s been thinking about it since 1973.”
— Ariel (a Jewish settlement in the West Bank) Mayor
Ron Nahman, commenting on the Palestinian enclaves created
by the fence that is being built on Palestinian land in Ha’aretz
last May. Many critics of the “fence,” which wraps
along the West Bank and cuts off Palestinians from their farm
land, and severely restrains their movement, has been causing
many internationals to describe it as effectively pushing
Palestinians into Bantustans, such as the indigenous population
experienced during South Africa’s apartheid.
“Israel will not be deterred from protecting its citizens
and will strike its enemies in every place and in every way.”
— Ariel Sharon, Oct. 7, following Israel’s first
air strike on Syria in 30 years.
“Freedom and terrorism will struggle — good and
evil — until the battle is resolved. These are the terms
Providence has put before the United States, Israel, and the
rest of the civilized world. They are stark, and they are
final. Those who call this world-view ‘simplistic’
are more than welcome to share their ‘sophisticated’
theories at any number of international debating clubs.”
— Tom DeLay, White House majority leader, speaking at
the Israeli parliament July 30.
“I don’t believe there is a separation of church
and state. I think the Constitution is very clear. The only
separation is that there will not be a government church.”
— Tom DeLay to a TV preachers’ Congressional luncheon,
July 2001.
“Our entire system is built
on the Judeo-Christian ethic, but it fell apart when we started
denying God. If you stand up today and acknowledge God, they
will try to destroy you... My mission is to bring us back
to the Constitution and to Absolute Truth that has been manipulated
and destroyed by a liberal worldview.”
— Tom DeLay, May 2001.
“People hate the messenger.
That’s why they killed Christ.”
— Tom DeLay, in an interview with The Washington Post,
July 2001.
“Why is this man in the White House? The majority of
Americans did not vote for him. He’s in the White House
because God put him there for a time such as this.”
— Deputy undersecretary of defense for intelligence
William Boykin, to a religious group, in the last two years.
“You should know that this war (by the occupiers) is
a new crusade against the Islamic world and is a fateful war
for the whole (Muslim) nation.”
— Al Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden, in a tape released
last month.
“I had the honor of traveling from the airport out to
Ruiz Foods — by the way, which was a fantastic experience
going out there, I love the story of America, I love the fact
that people who started with nothing and have built a fantastic
food processing business. The Ruiz’s are here with us
today. They were great hosts. They now process 3 million burritos
a day. Are you having burritos for lunch?”
— President George W. Bush, at a Bush-Cheney ‘04
reception in Fresno, California, last month.
“Now, when will we find him? I don’t know. Where
is he? I don’t know. I suspect he’s still in the
country, I suspect he still in the Northern part but that’s
like saying someone’s in the Northern part of California.
That doesn’t make it any easier to find him and we don’t
have good intelligence that is actionable enough that we can
nail it.”
— Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld on Saddam Hussein,
in an interview last month.
“His remarks only go to prove that he is just an old
man, politically illiterate. His outbursts ... cannot be construed
otherwise than a desperate shrill cry of a psychopath on his
death bed.”
— KCNA, North Korea’s official news agency, on
Donald Rumsfeld, Sept. 27
“If we think there’s an opportunity to move the
process forward we will discuss it with our partners. We will
not have a [non-aggression] treaty, if that’s what you’re
asking. That’s off the table,”
— President George W. Bush on North Korea, Oct. 19
“If I could just get a nuclear device inside [the U.S.
State Department], I think that’s the answer,’”
— Pat Robertson on his TV show The 700 Club last month.
“I glance at the headlines just to kind of get a flavor
for what’s moving. I rarely read the stories, and get
briefed by people who probably read the news themselves.”
— President George W. Bush, Washington, D.C., Sept.
21.