For the second time, the U.S. has vetoed a U.N. Security Council resolution that would have put international monitors in the West Bank and Gaza, this time on the grounds that the resolution did not mention recent suicide attacks or name the groups responsible for them. Other than the veto, the vote was 12 for and two abstentions.
John D. Negroponte (United States) said the question before the Council was whether the draft resolution could make a meaningful contribution to improving the situation in the Middle East. Unfortunately, it failed to address the dynamic at work in the region. Instead, its purpose was to isolate politically one of the parties to the conflict, through an attempt to throw the weight of the Council behind the other party. A fundamental flaw of the resolution was that it never mentioned the recent acts of terrorism against Israelis or those responsible for them. Terrorist organizations such as Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad were deliberately seeking to sabotage any potential there might be for Israelis and Palestinians to conclude a negotiated peace.
He said it was Chairman Arafat's responsibility to take a strategic stand against terrorism. There could be no coexistence with terrorist organizations or acquiescence in their activities. The Palestinian Authority must arrest those responsible for planning and carrying out terrorist attacks, and destroy the formal and informal structures that perpetuated terrorism. Israel, for its part, must very carefully focus on the repercussion of any actions it took. Neither party should lose sight of the need to resume progress towards a lasting end to the violence and resumption of a dialogue.
The Council should not take any action that would turn the focus of the parties away from the efforts needed to improve an already tense situation. The United States had decided to make use of its veto to block the draft resolution.
Bush has claimed executive privilege and refused to turn over documents related to FBI use of mob informants and the investigation of Clinton fund raising activities to the House Committee on Government Reform, which had subpoenaed them under their oversight of the Justice Department function for a hearing originally scheduled for 9/11. In a memo released Wednesday, Bush claims the release of these documents would be "contrary to the national interest." The action met an angry reaction at the rescheduled hearing on Thursday.
The Real Roots of Terror: Jack Beatty argues that its not Iraq and the like we should be going after, it's Egypt and Saudi Arabia - "The autocratic regimes of Saudi Arabia and Egypt distract their citizens from repression at home by directing their anger toward the U.S." [via Bushwacker]
Bush ties the wars on drugs and terror together in his speech yesterday while signing the Drug-Free Communities Act:
Drug use threatens everything, everything that is best about our country. It breaks the bonds between parents and children. It turns productive citizens into addicts. It transforms schools into places of violence and chaos. It makes playgrounds into crime scenes. It supports gangs here at home. And abroad, it's so important for Americans to know that the traffic in drugs finances the work of terror, sustaining terrorists -- that terrorists use drug profits to fund their cells to commit acts of murder.
If you quit drugs, you join the fight against terror in America.
So remember kids, if you buy drugs then you're funding terrorists, and that makes you a terrorist too.
At least Bush is trying to do something about the demand side in the WoD. The demand side of terror, the things we do to generate such hatred, must also be addressed if the WoT is going to get anywhere in the long run. [via blackholebrain]
While you were watching the war: Molly Ivins on what else Bush has been up to. [via BookNotes]
Kenya has agreed to let the U.S. and Britain set up bases in its territory for use against Somalia.
The Global Relief Foundation, whose U.S. offices were raided yesterday, was also a target of NATO and UN raids in Kosovo, and the U.S. assets of that group were frozen.
In a debate Friday with Paul Billings of GeneSage at the Associate of Reproductive Health Professionals Reproductive Health conference, Panos Zavos of the Andrology Institute of America said he plans to find a country where he can legally perform reproductive cloning.
NASA has moved up the undocking of Endeavour from the space station to 11:37 Eastern this morning. The shuttle will first boost the station by about three-quarters of a mile to avoid a Russian booster rocket that is expected to pass too close for comfort.
NPR reports on this year's Santarchy, one of the many Santa Pub Crawls happening around the world.
