The Loon Parade Continues
LibsDontGetIt
Annabelle McDonald
July 25, 2006
NOBEL peace laureate Betty Williams displayed a flash of her feisty Irish
spirit yesterday, lashing out at US President George W.Bush during a speech
to hundreds of schoolchildren.
Campaigning on the rights of young people at the Earth Dialogues forum,
being held in Brisbane, Ms Williams spoke passionately about the deaths of
innocent children during wartime, particularly in the Middle East, and
lambasted Mr Bush.
"I have a very hard time with this word 'non-violence', because I don't
believe that I am non-violent," said Ms Williams, 64.
"Right now, I would love to kill George Bush." Her young audience at the
Brisbane City Hall clapped and cheered.
"I don't know how I ever got a Nobel Peace Prize, because when I see
children die the anger in me is just beyond belief. It's our duty as human
beings, whatever age we are, to become the protectors of human life."
Ms Williams was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize 30 years ago, when she
circulated a petition to end violence in Northern Ireland after witnessing
British soldiers shoot dead an IRA member who was driving a car. He veered
on to the footpath, killing two children from one family instantly and
fatally injuring a third.
Ms Williams's petition had tens of thousands of Protestant and Catholic
women walking the streets together in protest. Now the former office
receptionist heads the World Centres of Compassion for Children
International, a non-profit group working to create a political voice for
children.
"My job is to tell you their stories," Ms Williams said of a recent trip to
Iraq.
"We went to a hospital where there were 200 children; they were beautiful,
all of them, but they had cancers that the doctors couldn't even recognise.
From the first Gulf War, the mothers' wombs were infected.
"As I was leaving the hospital, I said to the doctor, 'How many of these
babies do you think are going to live?'
"He looked me straight in the eye and said, 'None, not one'. They needed
five different kinds of medication to treat the cancers that the children
had, and the embargoes laid on by the United States and the United Nations
only allowed them three."
Wrapping up the three-day forum yesterday, delegates agreed to a 26-point
action plan.
"There can be no sustainable peace while the majority of the world's
population lives in poverty," they said.
"There can be no sustainable peace if we fail to rise to the global
challenge presented by climate change.
"There can be no sustainable peace while military spending takes precedence
over human development."
--
The battle between Saladin and Richard marked the high point of the
Crusades, the first major clash between Islam and Western Christendom, which
lasted more than three centuries. And though they are only faint in the
Western consciousness, in the Muslim world the Crusades still loom large in
cultural memory. When Osama bin Laden declared his own jihad in 1998, he
accused America of "[spearheading] the crusade against the Islamic nation."
And in a tape released to his followers last year, he promised that the
world would "see again Saladin carrying his sword, the blood of unbelievers
dripping from it."