Just watching the news conference on the boob tube, and some comments by The Chimp caught my ear...
One of the WHPC, I believe it was Terence Hunt, asked Bush W. for his response on the Amnesty International statement that Bush was creating a 'new gulag of prisons around the world.' The United States 'no longer seems the good guy.' Bush's only coherent response was 'That's an absurd allegation.'
Here's the official Whitewash House response:
http://abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200505/s1377268.htm
And here's a way to get to the original Amnesty International report:
http://www.amnestyusa.org/news/index.do
There are 540 prisoners at Guatanamo Bay right now - many have been there for three years without charge.
Another one of them fine folk asked the cutting question that the invasion of Iraq was supposed to discourage other nations from creating weapons programs. Why, then, did North Korea and Iran now have weapons programs?
Bush's response was that North Korea and Iran had weapons programs before the war.
This is more or less true, but they were clandestine operations. After the use of force by the U.S., Iran and North Korea felt it necessary to assert themselves. When you think about it, Korea has had a inferiority complex for years - given weapons by the Soviets, then invaded by the United States, they've been feeling a little vulnerable for a while. And Iran has been stuck between Iraq and a hard place for quite some time.
Terence felt that Bush really hadn't answered his question (which he hadn't) so re-asked the question. Bush said that we want diplomacy to work.' That got me shouting at the tv.
How is invading a country diplomacy? I thought war was what happened when diplomacy failed!