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May 2, 2002
Bernard
Weiner
A
Peek Inside Colin Powell's Personal Diary
Kathleen Christison
Before There Was Terrorism
May 1, 2002
Badiou,
Michel, Lazarus
French
Elections:
What is to be Done?
Baruch Kimmerling
The Battle of Jenin as
an Inter-Ethnic War
Edward
Hammond
Hiding
History:
NAS Suppresses Chem/Bio War Documents
Kristen Schurr
Inside Gaza
Sam Bahour
Corporate
America and
the Israeli Occupation
Jacques Ranciere
Prisoners of the Infinite
April 30, 2002
Mike Leon
Chomsky,
Letters to the Writer and the Peace Movement
Dave Marsh
The FBI and the Music
Industry: Paying the Cost to Feed the Boss
Steen
Sohn
Something
Rotten in Denmark:
New Danish Government's Alliance with Far Right
Desmond Tutu
Apartheid in the Holy Land
Christopher
Reilly
Kissinger:
the Wanted Man
April 29, 2002
Larry Hales
At the Church of the Nativity
Michael
Colby
The
Times Does Brockovich:
Ralph Nader with Cleavage?
CounterPunch Wire
Bank Robs Publisher,
Vows to Repeat
Gavin
Keeney
So
Long, Frank O. Gehry?
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The Jewish Left and Palestine
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Dr. Susan
Block
Adelphia
Going Down:
Cover Ups, Censorship
and Naughty Accounting
Jordy Cummings
Stuck Inside the Journalism School
Pyramid
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St. Clair
Set
This Flag on Fire!
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Tom Turnipseed
Act
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/ Weissman
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Tariq Ali
Letter to a Young Muslim
April 25, 2002
Francis
A. Boyle
Home
Brew? Biowarfare,
Terror Weapons and the US
Adam Federman
"And the Earth Wept"
Bush at Saranac Lake
Stanton
and Madsen
US
Media Interests:
Champions of Profit, Propaganda and Puffery
Aaron Hawley
Cop a Buzz Day in Vermont:
Education v. Incarceration
David
Vest
Code
Red: Politics and Wordplay at the Vatican
Bernard Weiner
Time Out! A Pause for Longer-Range
Thinking
Rep. Dennis
Kucinich
Standing
with the Peace Movement
April 24, 2002
David Vest
State of Politics in France:
Code Bleu
Jean Fallow
A20
in Seattle:
Cops Get Rough, Again
Kevin Alexander Gray
Help Save the Life of an Innocent Man:
Ask for Clemency for Ricky Johnson
Tanya
Reinhart
Jenin,
the Propaganda Battle
Todd May
Drowning Children, Palestinians and American
Responsibility
Alexander
Cockburn
The
Loneliest Road
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The Broken Home:
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Mokhiber
/ Weissman
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April 23, 2002
Brian Wood
Where Is the Aid for the Victims in
Jenin?
John Chuckman
I,
George:
Gomer as Claudius
Norman Madarasz
French Presidential Elections
Absenteeism and Le Pen
Dr. Susan
Block
Bernard
Parks, Goodbye:
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Joan Smith
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DeskScan: What's Playing
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Occupation, Terror
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The Freedom Train Hits Town
Shaik
Ubaid
Today
I Was a Palestinian
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Michelle Campos
Suckered Again in Israel
Mike Leon
200,000
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Gimme
Some Truth Now
A Walk Through Jenin
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May
2, 2002
Rep. Dick Armey Calls for Ethnic
Cleansing of Palestinians
CounterPunch
Wire
Last night on MSNBC's highly-rated program Hardball,
House Republican Majority Leader Dick Armey ( R-TX) called for
the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from the occupied territories
and endorsed Israel's conquests of those lands.
Armey said that he "is content to
have a Palestinian state" but is "not content to give
up any part of Israel for the purpose of a Palestinian state."
He defined the Palestinian territories occupied by Israel-East
Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza Strip-as Israel. He also said
he has "thought this through for a lot of years" and
believes that Palestinians living in the West Bank should be
removed.
Armey stated that "there are many
Arab nations that have many hundreds of thousands of acres of
land, soil, and property and opportunity to create a Palestinian
state."
An incredulous Chris Mathews, host of
Hardball, repeatedly gave Armey the opportunity to clarify that
he was not calling for the ethnic cleansing of all Palestinians
from Palestine, but the House Republican chief refused to do
so:
MATTHEWS: Well, just to repeat, you believe
that the Palestinians who are now living on the West Bank should
get out of there?
Rep. ARMEY: Yes.
The complete transcript of his remarks
can be read in the below.
TRANSCRIPT Hardball
with Chris Matthews
(9:00 PM ET) - CNBC
May 1, 2002 Wednesday
CHRIS MATTHEWS, host: Congressman Dick
Armey of Texas leads the Republicans in the US House of Representatives.
Congressman Armey, Mr. Majority Leader,
why is the Congress about to pass a resolution supporting Israel
at a time that the president is trying to walk a line between
Israel and its Arab neighbors?
Representative RICHARD ARMEY (Republican,
Majority Leader): Well, we've had--we feel very strongly in the
House of Representatives that we have a moral obligation to protect
the safety, security and freedom of Israel. And the Congress
wants to speak on that, both bodies want to do so. We've discussed
it with the White House, and everybody is comfortable. We will
go--go ahead with that tomorrow. It is very important to the
world that Israel be--the freedom of Israel be protected and
honored.
MATTHEWS: What good is this going to
do anybody?
Rep. ARMEY: Well, I think, again, we--we
want to make the point...
MATTHEWS: To whom?
Rep. ARMEY: The president of the United
States is trying to make a transition in foreign policy from
what it has been to what it must be in the future. We can no
longer appease aggressors in the Middle East. There obviously
will never be a peace. The goal is no Jews between them and the
sea, and we must make it very clear that if you want to talk
about peace and talk the talk, you must walk the walk, and that
must be respect for Israel's right to live freely, safely and
securely.
MATTHEWS: OK. Let's talk about the realities
over there. There's a fight between the Arabs and the--and the
Israelis over who owns the Pal--all of Palestine. Do you support
the idea that there be a Palestine state alongside Israel?
Rep. ARMEY: I am perfectly content to
have a Palestinian state alongside Israel if it is a state that
honors others borders.
MATTHEWS: You are in total, 180 disagreement
with Tom Delay who said this week that the entire West Bank belongs
to Israel and it belongs to that country that's not an Arab country.
Rep. ARMEY: I...
MATTHEWS: It should not have a statehood.
Rep. ARMEY: No, I'm perfectly content
to have a Palestinian state. I am not content to give up any
part of Israel for that purpose of that Palestinian state.
MATTHEWS: Wait a minute. Tom Delay's,
whose resolution you're going to put on the floor tomorrow and
schedule, has said that the entire West Bank, he calls it Judean
Samaria, belongs to Israel. How can you say that this resolution
doesn't support the Delay position which is Israel has a right
to grab the entire West Bank?
Rep. ARMEY: No, I--I'm content to have
Israel grab the entire West Bank. I'm also content to have the
Palestinians have a homeland and even for that to be somewhere
near Israel, but I'm not content to see Israel give up land for
the purpose of peace to the Palestinians who will not accept
it and would not honor it. It is time to...
MATTHEWS: Well, where do you put the
Palestinian state, in Norway? Once the Israelis take back the
West Bank permanently and annex it, there's no place else for
the Palestinians to have a state.
Rep. ARMEY: No, no, that's not--that's
not at all true. There are many Arab nations that have many hundreds
of thousands of acres of land and--and soil and property and
opportunity to create a Palestinian state.
MATTHEWS: So you would transport--you
would transport the Palestinians from Palestine to somewhere
else and call it their state?
Rep. ARMEY: I would be perfectly content
to have a homeland, just as--most of...
MATTHEWS: But not in Palestine?
Rep. ARMEY: Most of the people who now
populate Israel were transported from all over the world to that
land and they made it their home. The Palestinians can do the
same, and we're per--perfectly content to work with the Palestinians
in doing that. We are not willing to sacrifice Israel for the
notion of a Palestinian homeland.
MATTHEWS: Right, no. No, that's not the
question and that's not your answer. The question here is: What
is the future of the Palestinians who are fighting Israel right
now? You say there future is somewhere besides Palestine. That
runs in the way of US policy going back to 1948. It runs--it
runs completely against the president's policy and every policy
I've heard a president take, which is that Israel has to give
up its settlements on the West Bank and give it back to the Arabs
in exchange for peace. You say the deal should be the Palestinians
leave?
Rep. ARMEY: That's right. Palestinians
say the deal should be the Israel--that--that the Israelis leave.
MATTHEWS: Have you talked about this
with the president?
Rep. ARMEY: I happened to believe that
the Palestinians should leave.
MATTHEWS: Have you ever told George Bush,
the president from your home state of Texas, that you think the
Palestinians should get up and go and leave Palestine and that's
the solution?
Rep. ARMEY: I'm probably telling him
that right now. This is...
MATTHEWS: Have you thought this through?
Rep. ARMEY: I have thought this through.
I've thought it through for a lot of years. I believe that Israel
is the state for the Jewish people. It needs to be honored. It
needs to be protected.
MATTHEWS: Yeah. That's not what you're
saying. You're saying Israel should expand its borders to the
Jordan River...
Rep. ARMEY: No.
MATTHEWS: ...and kick out all the Palestinians?
That's what you just said.
Rep. ARMEY: I am--I am content to have
Israel occupy that land that it now occupies and to have those
people who have been aggressors against Israel retired to some
other arena, and I would be happy to have them make a home. I
would be happy to have all of these Arab nations that have been
so hell bent to drive Israel out of the Middle East to get together,
find some land and make a home for the Palestinians. I think
it can be done.
MATTHEWS: So the president, who has been
dutifully, for the last couple of weeks, trying to get the Israeli
army to withdraw from the West Bank, should stop that, let the
Israeli defense force take over the West Bank and hold it and
make it part of Israel? You completely disagree with the president's
policy then?
Rep. ARMEY: I am--I am perfectly content
to have Israel hold and occupy the land that it has at this moment.
MATTHEWS: Well, how about though-how
about the Jenin in Samaria? Tom Delay, whose measure you're putting
on the floor tomorrow, says that all the West Bank, Jenin, Judea,
Masada, everything belongs to Israel. It's not occupied territory.
It's Israeli. Is that your position?
Rep. ARMEY: Well, first of all, Chris,
I think we have to be real careful on how you are interpreting
jo--Tom's provision. I think Tom's provision is principally and
primarily that the Jewish people have a right to defend themselves.
MATTHEWS: Well, just to repeat, you believe
that the Palestinians who are now living on the West Bank should
get out of there?
Rep. ARMEY: Yes.
MATTHEWS: OK. Thank you very much. More
with Congressman Dick Armey coming back. You're watching HARDBALL.
(Announcements)
MATTHEWS: We're back with Congressman
Dick Army who is head of the Republican Party. He's majority
leader of the US House of Representatives.
Mr. Armey, the president's people, somebody
in the highest levels of this administration, is leaking the
fact that the United States is planning to attack Iraq sometime
in next year. Do you think that would require a congressional
resolution?
Rep. ARMEY: I don't know that that leak
is out there. It's--I'm missing it if it's out there. I have
to tell you, Chris, in the last year or so, I've come to where
I hardly trust anything I read in the papers anymore until the
president of the United States tells me himself that he is planning
such an operation.
MATTHEWS: Yeah. So he never mentioned
that in the meeting--in the breakfast meeting today he never
mentioned Iraq?
Rep. ARMEY: No, he certainly did not.
He certainly--he certainly did not and he certainly did not talk
about any kind of military operation relative to Iraq.
MATTHEWS: Just so the people out there
know where the House of Representatives stands, does the--does
the House of Representatives have to vote to support a US military
attack on Iraq if the president chooses to make one?
Rep. ARMEY: I would think that as we've
seen this president and his father act in the past, before he
took any kind of military action that deployed our troops on
a field of conflict, he would probably come to us and ask for
our support and our consideration in the matter.
MATTHEWS: Well, under the Constitution,
would that be necessary?
Rep. ARMEY: I think the con--you'll have
to go to a constitutional scholar on that. There's so much confusion
on that point right now. I cannot answer it within a hypothetical
context.
MATTHEWS: OK. Let me ask you about this
bad news we got this week from Director Mueller, who is head
of the FBI, that they haven't found a shred of paper that gives
us any idea of how the September 11th horror was--was concocted,
planned, carried out. No evidence at all.
Rep. ARMEY: Well, I--you've got a bunch
of people hiding in caves, working out plans and scheming and
plotting. Why are we upset that we don't have any hard paper
trail on that? I--I would never have expected to have found one.
MATTHEWS: How do we--how do we feel that
we've ended the war against al-Qaeda and caught the people who
did what they did September 11th? How do we know we've won that
war?
Rep. ARMEY: Well, I don't know for sure
when you know you've won that war. We don't know how many people
are scattered all over the world. This is a--a case even where
if you caught and killed bin Laden you got a snake that can continue
to crawl and continue to be dangerous even if the head has been
cut off it. So you have to stay vigilant for a very, very long
time.
MATTHEWS: Whose head would you rather
get, Mr. Leader, Mr. Armey? Would you rather get the head of
Osama bin Laden or the head of Saddam Hussein if you had it on
the platter? If you were a salome right now and--and St. John
was offering you a head, which head would you demand?
Rep. ARMEY: Well, I think right now the
world would say 'We--we've got to stop bin Laden who is--who
has said, "I'll take this terror to every corner of the
world."'
MATTHEWS: Right.
Rep. ARMEY: Saddam Hussein is--at least
is confining himself, as it is right now, to his own territory,
although we're sure he's supporting terrorists across the world.
MATTHEWS: I like--I like you now you've
said what I wanted you to say finally which is we've got to get
bin Laden. Thank you very much, US Congressman Dick Armey of
Texas.
Rep. ARMEY: OK.
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