Sunday, April 20, 2003

UK Guardian News


No role for UN in weapons hunt
The UN is to be cut out of any involvement in the hunt for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq 'for the foreseeable future'.

Arabs flee revenge of the Kurds
For decades, Saddam 'Arabised' northern Iraq. Now his ethnic cleansing is being reversed, with bloody results.

More on the Army Ignoring Warnings to Protect Museum

Tim Robbins on the Threat to Free Speech in America

"Our voices are lost in tide of intolerance"

A unified American public has grown bitterly divided and a world population that had profound sympathy and support for us has grown contemptuous and distrustful, viewing us as we once viewed the Soviet Union, as a rogue state.

A relative tells me that a history teacher tells his 11-year-old son, my nephew, that Susan Sarandon is endangering the troops by her opposition to the war. Another relative tells me of a school board decision to cancel a civics event that was proposing to have a moment of silence for those who have died in the war, because the students were including dead Iraqi civilians in their silent prayer. A teacher in another nephew's school is fired for wearing a T-shirt with a peace sign on it. A friend of the family tells of listening to the radio down South as the talk show host calls for the murder of a prominent anti-war activist.

A famous middle-aged rock'n'roller called me last week to thank me for speaking out against the war, only to tell me he could not speak himself because he fears repercussions from Clear Channel.

Helen Thomas finds herself banished to the back of the [White House press briefing] room and uncalled on after asking Ari Fleischer whether our showing prisoners of war at Guantánamo Bay on television violated the Geneva Convention.

A chill wind is blowing in this nation... In the midst of all this madness, where is the political opposition?

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