Monday, July 31, 2006
Bush Admin RhetIraq: Bolton on Civilian Deaths
Who: John Bolton, US Ambassador the the United Nations
Source: The Washington Note
Quotes: From blog entry titled, "Let's Hear that John Bolton Line Now: The Deaths of Innocent Lebanese Not Equivalent to the Deaths of Innocent Israelis"
An Israeli air strike has killed 54 civilians -- including 37 children. This after the strike against a UN observation facility where UN staff were killed -- and also after hundreds and hundreds of other innocent Lebanese have been killed in the exchanges between Hezbollah and Israeli military forces.
At his Thursday Senate confirmation hearings, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee majority staff passed out Ambassador Bolton's "official statement". In that opening statement, there appeared a controversial and provocative sentence that asserted that Israelis and Lebanese who become innocent casualties in this war are not morally equivalent. His argument is that Israeli innoncents are more important than Lebanese innocent casualties because the Israelis were attacked by Hezbollah.
The sentence read:
"But it is a mistake to ascribe a moral equivalence to civilians who die as the direct resulte of malicious terrorist acts, the very purpose of which are to kill civilians, and the tragic and unfortunate consequence of civilian deaths as a result of military action taken in self-defense."
My surprise did not come when John Bolton read a script that was different than the one in hand. What happened was that just as John Bolton was beginning to read his statement, a new statement was distributed -- with only this line of text removed.
That is important as it highlights something that the Department of State was not ready to clear -- and shows something about John Bolton's views and personality that State was not ready to sign off on.
After this huge tragedy today -- 37 innocent children -- in a crude aerial assault, does John Bolton stand by the statement he wanted to give?
Source: The Washington Note
Quotes: From blog entry titled, "Let's Hear that John Bolton Line Now: The Deaths of Innocent Lebanese Not Equivalent to the Deaths of Innocent Israelis"
An Israeli air strike has killed 54 civilians -- including 37 children. This after the strike against a UN observation facility where UN staff were killed -- and also after hundreds and hundreds of other innocent Lebanese have been killed in the exchanges between Hezbollah and Israeli military forces.
At his Thursday Senate confirmation hearings, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee majority staff passed out Ambassador Bolton's "official statement". In that opening statement, there appeared a controversial and provocative sentence that asserted that Israelis and Lebanese who become innocent casualties in this war are not morally equivalent. His argument is that Israeli innoncents are more important than Lebanese innocent casualties because the Israelis were attacked by Hezbollah.
The sentence read:
"But it is a mistake to ascribe a moral equivalence to civilians who die as the direct resulte of malicious terrorist acts, the very purpose of which are to kill civilians, and the tragic and unfortunate consequence of civilian deaths as a result of military action taken in self-defense."
My surprise did not come when John Bolton read a script that was different than the one in hand. What happened was that just as John Bolton was beginning to read his statement, a new statement was distributed -- with only this line of text removed.
That is important as it highlights something that the Department of State was not ready to clear -- and shows something about John Bolton's views and personality that State was not ready to sign off on.
After this huge tragedy today -- 37 innocent children -- in a crude aerial assault, does John Bolton stand by the statement he wanted to give?
