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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Peter Dierks who wrote (751738)	10/15/2006 1:54:45 AM
From: Hope Praytochange	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769667

For God and Country Interview by DEBORAH SOLOMON Q: Your new book about the aftermath of 9/11 is titled “Never Again,” but isn’t that an inappropriate use of a phrase that has traditionally referred to the Holocaust? I used it because President Bush turned and looked in my direction and said, “Don’t ever let this happen again.” Now that you have left your post as U.S. attorney general and are working as a lobbyist, would you still defend the president’s willingness to disregard the Geneva Conventions in the treatment and torture of suspected terrorists? I think there is a very sound argument for saying that those who violate the Geneva Conventions should not benefit from its provisions. You’re talking about the terrorists. But we can’t stoop to their level. This is the United States of America. We have to guarantee the rights of everyone, including prisoners. Well, we have guaranteed many rights to the prisoners. What about the Patriot Act, which licensed the disregard of certain privacy laws designed to protect our own citizens? After years of misrepresentation and pillorying by a variety of groups like the A.C.L.U. that ended up making a lot of money by opposing it and developed a lot of membership by opposing it, its renewal passed by 89 votes in the Senate. They didn’t oppose the Patriot Act in order to make money, or as some kind of marketing scheme. If you think they don’t care about membership, I think that’s a naïve understanding of the way politics works in America. As one of the best-known evangelical Christians in this country, what do you make of the current pope, Benedict XVI? When the pope speaks, I take it very seriously. But I don’t take it as ultimately authoritative, unless I find it to be consistent with what I believe is ultimately authoritative, and that’s the Scripture. What did you think when the pope gave that controversial speech last month, appearing to debunk Islam by referring to a medieval text that characterizes Muhammad as a prophet of violence? If the pope thought the Muslim faith were better than the Catholic faith, he’d be a Muslim. To say that you have beliefs and that they are equal to everyone else’s beliefs all the time is to devalue the concept of belief. In that case, do you think your own religious tradition of evangelicalism is superior to Catholicism? For me it is. What about Islam? I don’t think it’s the faith for me. I find that I respond to the reconciliation, the healing and the forgiveness of Jesus. Don’t all the major monotheistic religions — Judaism, Christianity and Islam — teach compassion? In some cases, they do. I can’t really speak for them. I’m a Christian for a variety of reasons. Maybe because it’s easy. What I have to do to please God is to confess that I am a sinner instead of trying to prove that I am good. So you see yourself as a sinner? Yes. I fail and do things that I wish I didn’t do. Such as? I’m unkind on occasion, and I am selfish. For me, embracing the Christian faith is something that I do not because I am good but because I am not good, because I need help. Why? Do you drink? I drink probably a quart or two a day, but not of alcohol! I don’t consume alcohol at all. I’ve never had a mixed drink. Have you ever smoked a cigarette? No. I puffed on a cigar one time, and it just made my mouth feel like someone had shot a cobweb all inside my mouth. If you felt temptation for another woman, what would you do? Call my wife. In addition to songwriting, you dabble in the visual arts. What sort of work do you do? I make barbed-wire sculpture. Why barbed wire? Because there was a surplus of it on my farm. Well, thank you for making time for this interview. I just hope that in meeting people, they’ll understand that I am not as bad as they thought I was.

To: Peter Dierks who wrote (751738)	10/16/2006 8:49:51 AM
From: DuckTapeSunroof	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 769667

Kurds and Shiites Move Toward Independence: THE CONFLICT IN IRAQ Government Fissures Widening Relations between the main Sunni and Shiite political blocs worsen as Iraq takes a step toward federalism and sectarian violence persists. By Borzou Daragahi Times Staff Writer October 16, 2006 latimes.com BAGHDAD — Months of bloodshed have threatened to loosen the bonds holding together Iraq's fractious government, with tensions between political blocs spilling out in recent days in fiery rhetoric as well as fighting that left more than 130 people dead nationwide. Disagreements over several contentious issues burst into the open with a highly divisive vote on the issue of parceling Iraq into federal districts, finger-pointing over the assassination of a top politician's brother and a series of massacres between rival Shiite Muslims and Sunni Arabs north of the capital. There, among the lush palm groves and towns along the Tigris River, at least 73 people were killed in sectarian violence over the weekend. Shiite gunmen, seeking revenge for the beheadings of 26 farmers whose bodies were found in Sunni villages, marauded through the farming hub of Balad, about 50 miles north of the capital, officials said. The assailants randomly killed Sunni men in the market, hospitals and a used-car lot, the officials said, and 12 victims reportedly burned to death. An Iraqi army source said a total of 47 people were killed. Sunni tribesmen in farms outside Balad lobbed mortar rounds into the Shiite-dominated town and armed themselves for further fighting, said residents of the Sunni village of Duluiya. U.S. forces imposed a curfew on the area. Meanwhile, authorities awaited news of the fate of several groups of Shiite men kidnapped from minibuses over the weekend on their way out of the nearby Shiite village of Dujayl. Also Sunday, six car bomb explosions killed about 10 people and injured dozens around the northern city of Kirkuk, which is claimed by Arabs as well as ethnic Kurds who inhabit a semiautonomous section of northern Iraq. In the capital, at least 52 Iraqis, including two children, were reported killed in shootings, rocket attacks, bombings and clandestine sectarian slayings. Three U.S. solders were killed Saturday when their vehicle was caught in the blast of a homemade bomb south of Baghdad, the military said, disclosing no further details. At least 52 U.S. military personnel died in Iraq during the first two weeks of the month, putting October on pace to be the deadliest for U.S. troops in the country since January 2005. Iraq's Sunni insurgents are fighting a guerrilla war against American forces and the U.S.-backed Shiite- and Kurdish-dominated government. Shiite gunmen, with possible ties to powerful political parties, fight back by killing suspected insurgents and ordinary Sunnis alike. Many Iraqis call the waves of violence a civil war tempered only by the ongoing political process. But relations between the main Sunni and Shiite political blocs also have worsened over the last week. On Sunday, the government indefinitely postponed a highly publicized conference to discuss reconciliation among Iraq's disparate groups. According to a news release, the conference, scheduled to begin Saturday, was canceled for unspecified "emergency reasons." Acrimony among the country's major ethnic and religious groups swelled after the Shiite- and Kurdish-dominated parliament passed a law Wednesday allowing for the eventual division of Iraq into federal regions. The vote came despite the strenuous objections of Sunnis, who view the plan as a recipe for carving up Iraq. Sunni Arabs suspect that Shiites have agreed to cede the northern oil hub of Kirkuk to autonomy-minded Kurds in exchange for support of an oil-rich Shiite southern region. About 500 mostly Sunni Arab tribal leaders attending a summit in northern Iraq on Sunday vowed to fight any federal partitioning of the country, which they fear might further impoverish Sunnis in the resource-poor central and western regions. "We are demanding that the government and the parliament not force this matter on Iraq and its people," said Sheik Abdul-Rahman Asi. "There are many political forces that reject this matter." Relations between Iraq's Sunni and Shiite political blocs seem to have reached a nadir. Earlier in the day, the Iraqi Islamic Party, a major Sunni group, issued a statement all but accusing the Shiite-dominated Interior Ministry in the Oct. 9 slaying of Amer Hashimi. He was the brother of Tariq Hashimi, one of Iraq's two vice presidents and the Sunni bloc's leader. "The cars that broke through the [Iraqi army] checkpoints were new military cars and there were people inside wearing military uniforms," the statement said. "This is available only to the militias that are cooperating with the security apparatuses." Shiite officials have accused Sunni insurgents in Hashimi's killing, noting that he lived in an area under the control of the Sunni-dominated Defense Ministry. In a televised speech Sunday evening, Prime Minister Nouri Maliki, while acknowledging the need to disband unruly militias that support him, blamed Iraq's problems on Sunni "terrorists." U.S. and Iraqi officials had hoped the ongoing political process in the wake of elections last December would lower tensions and help ease the violence, but some now worry that the political and religious leaders have exacerbated problems. "There's a sectarian conflict going on now between the Sunnis and Shiites," said Isam Rawi of the Sunni Muslim Scholars Assn., a clerical group. "But the religious and political discourse has a great effect in elevating these fights. It's not easy to target or kill or displace somebody unless somebody tells you those people are infidels or collaborators." daragahi@latimes.com * Times special correspondents in Baghdad, Kirkuk, Samarra and Taji contributed to this report.