Demanding That Obama Apologize to Iraqis

[unhappycamper]

Demanding That Obama Apologize to Iraqis
By Alquds Editorial
Translated By Namir Shabibi
20 February 2009

Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa urged U.S. President Barack Obama to apologize on behalf of the American people for his country’s invasion of Iraq and to adopt a tough position toward dictatorships in Africa.

The Tutu cleric was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his struggle against the racist apartheid regime in South Africa. He was always distinguished for telling the truth and for this reason, when he demands that the new U.S. president apologize, he means what he says and his words rest on absolute moral and humanitarian principles.

The previous U.S. administration went to war on Iraq based on lies and campaigns to deceive the American people, trying, as it did, to garner support from global opinion over the invasion. Today, now that the truth has become clear and the lies have been uncovered, and now that the world knows the extent of suffering in Iraq, there must be a brave and bold apology over the disastrous error that was the invasion.

This war led to the martyrdom of more than 1.5 million Iraqis, the displacement of at least five million others, and the rupture of a stable country, which denied its people security and the most basic necessities. These crimes must not go either unrecognized or unpunished.

Desmond Tutu was one of the few voices that warned against the danger of American military advances toward Iraq and the Islamic world. During his visit to the United States, Tutu spoke of how the Israeli Lobby had hijacked the White House and its decision-making circle, making a mockery out of a great power in order to serve Israeli interests, even if this led to the sacrifice of innocents and global stability.


Rest of article at: http://watchingamerica.com/News/21211/demanding-that-obama-apologize-to-iraqis/

[Lasher]

1. Bush & Cheney first.

I'm willing to wait.

[frogcycle]

2. interesting thought!

dunno what to think of it...

I think it would be premature now, but at some point, just as we eventually apologized for Japanese internment camps and for slavery and for the Trail of Tears/Wounded Knee/etc...

we did, didn't we?

did we?

what about VN?

Can one President really speak for the nation collectively, both present and past, in apologizing for ANYTHING?
Would it not just really be an affirmation of his/her personal view?

Perhaps an apology for having put the bastards in a position to do what they did... the country collectively used infinitely poor judgment in casting ANY votes for bush/cheney vs Gore/(m-fer), to set up a scenario wherein rednecks and crooks in FLA held all the cards, and eventually Sandra Day O'Connor was able to cast the single deciding vote - which turned out to be a vote to go on a rampage. Maybe it should be an apology for having created a nuclear-armed rogue state (and I don't mean Pakistan). An apology for having failed Jefferson:

I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations
which dare already to challenge our government to a trial by strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country.

If there is one principle more deeply rooted in the mind of every American, it is that we should have nothing to do with conquest.

Leave no authority existing not responsible to the people.


Merchants have no country. The mere spot they stand on does not constitute so strong an attachment as that from which they draw their gains.

No government ought to be without censors; and where the press is free no one ever will.

Our country is now taking so steady a course as to show by what road it will pass to destruction, to wit: by consolidation of power first, and then corruption, its necessary consequence.

The moment a person forms a theory, his imagination sees in every object only the traits which favor that theory.

more... http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/t/thomas_jefferson.html

[lazer47]

3. A man who refused to vote for the war, doesn't need to apologize for it

let Bush and Cheney do what they should do, and apologize from the Hague,,

[Captain Hilts]

4. It wasn't his vote and he said in '06 he's not sure how he would have voted. Life is complicated. nt