State Department Criticizes Military Trial in Deaths of 3 Americans
Tuesday, February 10, 2004
ap
WASHINGTON - The State Department said Tuesday that the Palestinian
Authority (search) had not conducted a full and genuine investigation into
the deaths of three U.S. security officials last October in Gaza (search).
Putting four suspects on trial before a closed military tribunal "doesn't
settle the issue of who killed the Americans and whether they are being
punished," department spokesman Richard Boucher (search) said.
The suspects are not being charged with being directly responsible for the
deaths, Boucher said. Instead, he said, the case is being made that "somehow
it happened by accident in connection with planting bombs."
Charges of planting explosives were announced days after the United States
publicized a $5 million reward for information about the attackers.
A prosecutor said the four men targeted Israeli tanks, but one of their
bombs may also have ripped apart a U.S. diplomatic vehicle Oct. 15, killing
the three American security guards.
Disputing that account, Boucher said Tuesday that "a real trial, an open
trial and clear punishment would be what we expect in this matter."
"We don't think that this trial will result in bringing to justice the
people who are really responsible and it doesn't settle the issue," he said.
Boucher said the security officials' convoy was clearly marked. "It's hard
to mistake an American convoy for an Israeli tank," he said.
In Gaza City, meanwhile, hundreds of Palestinians protested the arrests of
the four men.

"We should not march into Baghdad. To occupy Iraq would
instantly shatter our coalition, turning the whole Arab
world against us and make a broken tyrant into a latter-
day Arab hero. Assigning young soldiers to a fruitless
hunt for a securely entrenched dictator and condemning
them to fight in what would be an unwinable urban guerilla
war, it could only plunge that part of the world into ever
greater instability."
-George H. W. Bush in his 1998

On Tue, 10 Feb 2004 21:59:55 -0700, "- Vox Populi " <vox@popu.li>
wrote:

On Wed, 11 Feb 2004 12:19:41 -0600, The Traveler<truth@never.invalid>
wrote:

On Tue, 10 Feb 2004 21:59:55 -0700, "- Vox Populi " <vox@popu.li>
wrote:
Naturally they protested. THEY don't believe in any kind of justice.
They just want to kill, kill, kill. They don't care who gets hurt.
That was before 9-11 and the main purpose than was to rescue
Kuwait!!!!

The Traveler wrote:
You mean restore the tyranical Kuwait oligarchy to power ...?
See any democracy in Kuwait?

"Naturally, the common people don't want war;
neither in Russia nor in England nor in America,
nor for that matter in Germany.
That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders
of the country who determine the policy and
it is always a simple matter to drag the people
along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist
dictatorship or a Parliament or a Communist
dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can
always be brought to the bidding of the leaders.
That is easy. All you have to do is tell them
they are being attacked and denounce the
pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing
the country to danger. It works the same way
in any country."

- Hermann Goering, Nazi Reichsmarshall