Picture taken from: Jesus' General: http://patriotboy.blogspot.com/From CNN: http://tinyurl.com/jhqaw
President Bush opened his second term Thursday with a promise to the people of the United States and the world - - vowing to promote democracy both at home and abroad.
"It is the policy of the United States to seek and support the growth of democratic movements and institutions in every nation and culture, with the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world," Bush said in his inaugural address after his swearing-in ceremony... Former White House spokesman Ari Fleischer, who served in Bush's first term, said that the president's words would bring hope to people around the world.
From the US Department of Defense: http://tinyurl.com/fzgcb
Vice President Dick Cheney urged European allies to join with the United States in spreading democracy and the rule of law in the Middle East.... Cheney said experience shows that democratic institutions give people a sense of empowerment and a way to peacefully chart their own courses. "Democracies do not breed the anger and radicalism that drag down whole societies and export violence," he said. "Terrorists do not find fertile recruiting grounds in societies where young people have the right to guide their own destiny and choose their own leaders."
From the Sunday Times: "Driller killers" spread a new horror in Iraq
http://tinyurl.com/k6mg8
... First two police vehicles pulled up outside their house [Mustafa Sammarai's home, where his brother Mohamed was invited for lunch with their old friend Ali Ahmad] in the Hay al-Jihad district of Baghdad’s sprawling southern suburbs. Then came a convoy of up to 10 black BMWs and Opels — the favoured cars of the Shi’ite militias. Suddenly masked men brandishing Kalashnikov automatic rifles were storming inside. ... Two days later he [Ahmad] found his friends’ bodies in the city’s Teb al-Adli mortuary. Mustafa’s right eye had been gouged out and his right leg broken. Other parts of his body appeared to have been penetrated by an electric drill, an increasingly common tool of torture in Iraq. Mohammed’s body bore similar injuries. Both men had been shot in the head.
[...] John Pace, the outgoing head of the UN human rights office in Baghdad, said the vast majority of the bodies arriving at the mortuary showed signs of summary execution and many had their hands tied behind their backs. “Some showed evidence of torture, with arms and leg joints broken by electric drills,” said Pace, a Maltese official.
He claimed that militias were integrated with the police and were wearing police uniforms. One in particular was singled out: the Badr organisation that used to be the armed wing of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), the political party mentioned by one of the men in the Sammarais’ home.
... The Badr organisation, as it is known today, was founded in Iran in the 1980s with the aim of overthrowing Saddam Hussein and is thought to number 20,000 men. It was once led by Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, who now heads SCIRI, one of the main parties in the Shi’ite alliance that won last December’s election. The interior minister, Bayan Jabr, was also a member.
The Badr organisation has denied that it is operating death squads. Its leader, Hadi al-Amery, a member of parliament, said only 5% of the militia had been integrated into the Iraqi security forces. “We say to our members who go to the armed forces that your relationship with us will be severed,” he added. “No one is above the law.”
... According to Pace, the cases of torture and extrajudicial executions now exceed those under Saddam’s rule.
“Under Saddam, if you agreed to forgo your basic right to freedom of expression and thought, you were physically more or less okay,” he said. “Now you have a primitive, chaotic situation where anybody can do anything they want to anyone.”
I only have one question: How do Bush and Blair sleep at night? I know that Rumsfeld and Cheney don't sleep until sunrise, when they have to go back to their coffins.
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