Scumbag officially dead....

[ssibal]

Time to dance in the streets folks! :)

http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=VHNW04BOPPYQKCRBAE0CF EY?type=topNews&storyID=6779826&section=news

[corplinx]

These calls for a celebratory adult beverage. Perhaps a glass of that wine I've been saving for a special occasion.

[The Central Scrutinizer]

Show the proper respect - it's Mr. Scumbag.

[Atlas]

I'm glad it comes to us from the reputable news agency - Al Jazeera. That, at least makes it believable.

[The Central Scrutinizer]

Originally posted by Atlas
I'm glad it comes to us from the reputable news agency - Al Jazeera. That, at least makes it believable.

Nope, CNN.

[Atlas]

Originally posted by The Central Scrutinizer
Nope, CNN. I was referring to the OP linked headline -- "Arafat Officially Announced Dead -Al Jazeera"

CNN, Geez... now I don't know what to believe.

[ssibal]

Originally posted by Atlas
I'm glad it comes to us from the reputable news agency - Al Jazeera. That, at least makes it believable.

Hey, if 'psychics' can get hits why not Al Jazeera??? The news is all over the place anyway.

[Atlas]

Originally posted by ssibal
Hey, if 'psychics' can get hits why not Al Jazeera??? The news is all over the place anyway. Actually this is one of the few times that Al Jazeera is more credible than many others.

Personally, I think he's been brain dead since at least the day that French guy came out and said nothing more than, "Arafat is not dead."

[HarryKeogh]

With him holding power there never was a chance for peace in the region.

Now that he's dead I predict peace for the entire Middle East region...ok, who am I kidding, never.

[Nikk]

Originally posted by ssibal
Time to dance in the streets folks! :)




You mean Sharon's been assassinated - yippeeee!

Oh damn, wrong scumbag:( .

[AWPrime]

Originally posted by Nikk
You mean Sharon's been assassinated - yippeeee!

Oh damn, wrong scumbag:( .

Don't worry he is next.:wink:

[zenith-nadir]

Dance in the streets? Hell, we can do better than that! ;)


http://us.news1.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/rids/20041111/s/r231715110.jpgPalestinian children hold a poster of Palestinian President Yasser Arafat during a rally following the announcement of his death, near the West Bank city of Hebron November 11, 2004. - Courtesy ReutersI like how Reuters don't note that they are ALSO holding a gun ;)



http://us.news2.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/ap/20041111/lthumb.xms10611111125.mideast_israel_palestinians_ arafat_xms106.jpg Palestinian policemen shoot in the air as they drive by burning tires in Gaza City, Thursday, Nov. 11, 2004 in reaction to the news that Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat had died - Courtesy APhttp://us.news1.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/rids/20041111/s/r1848506591.jpg Palestinian guerrillas mourn the death of Palestinian President Yasser Arafat in Ain al-Hilweh refugee camp in south Lebanon November11, 2004. - Courtesy APhttp://us.news1.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/rids/20041111/s/r1960580559.jpg Masked Palestinian militants march with posters of the late President Yasser Arafat in front of his headquarters in Gaza, November 11, 2004. - Courtesy AP http://us.news1.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/rids/20041111/s/r556203961.jpg A Palestinian woman screams as she stands near burning tyres after the death of Palestinian President Yasser Arafat . - Courtesy Reuters http://us.news1.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/rids/20041111/s/r268028179.jpg Palestinian militants mourn the death of Palestinian President Yasser Arafat in Ain al-Hilweh refugee camp in south Lebanon November 11, 2004. - Courtesy Reuters

[Ed]

Palistinian parenting at it's finest.

[aerocontrols]

Originally posted by Atlas
Personally, I think he's been brain dead since at least the day that French guy came out and said nothing more than, "Arafat is not dead."

I began having my own suspicions of Arafat's possibly being brain dead in July of 2000.

[BPSCG]

De mortuis nil nisi bonum...

Ahhh, screw it. He was a piece of s#!t wrapped in human skin. He could have had his Palestinian state when he met with Barak and Clinton. Clinton later said "Arafat's been here 14 days, and all he's said is 'no'." Offered 95% of what he wanted, he proved his incompetence as a leader by screwing up the most elementary rule of negotiating: you don't just walk away from negotiations without making a counter-offer (Whatever happened to the supposed legendary Arab fondness for haggling? Was he cutting school the day they were teaching that?). Then he started intifada II, proving once and for all that his credo was "better to destroy yourself than to make a just peace with your enemy."

If he'd said "yes," and lived up to the Oslo accords and agreed to let Israel live in peace, he'd have his Palestinian state, and thousands of Palestinians and Israelis now dead, maimed, widowed, and orphaned, would still be celebrating life. And he might have actually deserved a Nobel Peace Prize.

'Bye, Yassir. Say hello to Thorn-Cocked Gulbuth the Rampant (http://markehrlich.com/humor/outerdarkness.htm) for us.

[BPSCG]

And one other thing: Invited in 1977 to speak before the United Nations General Assembly, an organization whose mission it is to promote peace, he brought a gun. That tells us all we need to know about Arafat.

And the U.N. let him. That tells us all we need to know about the U.N.

[zenith-nadir]

Global Security.org (http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/para/plo.htm) - The PLO -

Founded in 1964....In the early 1970s, several groups affiliated with the PLO carried out numerous international terrorist attacks. By the mid-1970s, under international pressure, the PLO claimed it would restrict attacks to Israel and the occupied territories....Onwar.com (http://www.onwar.com/aced/nation/jay/jordan/fblacksept1970.htm) -The PLO in Jordan -

On June 9, 1970, Rifai and Arafat signed an agreement conciliatory to the fedayeen. According to its provisions, the government allowed the commandos freedom of movement within Jordan, agreed to refrain from antiguerrilla action, and expressed its support for the fedayeen in the battle against Israel. In return, the commandos pledged to remove their bases from Amman and other major cities, to withdraw armed personnel from the Jordanian capital, and to show respect for law and order.

Small-scale clashes continued throughout the summer of 1970, however; and by early September, the guerrilla groups controlled several strategic positions in Jordan, including the oil refinery near Az Zarqa. Meanwhile, the fedayeen were also calling for a general strike of the Jordanian population and were organizing a civil disobedience campaign. The situation became explosive when, as part of a guerrilla campaign to undermine the Jarring peace talks to which Egypt, Israel, and Jordan had agreed, the PFLP launched an airplane hijacking campaign.

King Hussein viewed the hijackings as a direct threat to his authority in Jordan. In response, on September 16 he reaffirmed martial law....The fighting began the following day, with a Jordanian artillery barrage against the PLO stronghold of Zarqa. Within hours similar attacks were being directed against several areas of Amman, including the strategic Jabal Al Hussein, and on refugee camps such as Al Wahdat which had raised the flag of the Republic of Palestine.

The fighting in the streets of Amman was bloody. Neither side took any prisoners; both sides committed atrocities, many innocents were raped and killed, and most of the city was ablaze. In other parts of the country, besieged refugee camps where PLO fighters had taken refuge were running out of food and water.

Having thrown Palestinian fighters out of Amman and the major towns in a series of deliberate dislodgements, the Jordanians eventually forced them into the corner of the country bordering Israel and Syria. In July the Jordanian forces, reorganized and with their spirits uplifted by the prospects of victory, hit the Palestinians with everything they had.Onwar.com (http://www.onwar.com/aced/nation/lay/lebanon/flebanon1975.htm) - The PLO in Lebanon -

Palestinians also lived in Lebanon, particularly in the south in refugee camps or in bases from which guerrillas of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) carried out attacks on neighboring Israel. Lebanese Muslims tended to sympathize with the PLO.

The spark that ignited the war occurred in Beirut on April 13, 1975, when gunmen killed four Phalangists during an attempt on Pierre Jumayyil's life. Perhaps believing the assassins to have been Palestinian, the Phalangists retaliated later that day by attacking a bus carrying Palestinian passengers across a Christian neighborhood, killing about twenty-six of the occupants. The next day fighting erupted in earnest, with Phalangists pitted against Palestinian militiamen (thought by some observers to be from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine). The confessional layout of Beirut's various quarters facilitated random killing. Most residents of Beirut stayed inside their homes during these early days of battle, and few imagined that the street fighting they were witnessing was the beginning of a war that was to devastate their city and divide the country.

The Riyadh Conference, followed by an Arab League meeting in Cairo also in October 1976, formally ended the Lebanese Civil War; although the underlying causes were in no way eliminated, the full-scale warfare stopped.

Although the exact cost of the war will never be known, deaths may have approached 44,000, with about 180,000 wounded; many thousands of others were displaced or left homeless, or had migrated.Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PLO) - The PLO at the U.N. -

On January 12, 1976 the UN Security Council voted 11-1 with 3 absentions to allow the Palestinian Liberation Organization to participate in a Security Council debate without voting rights, a privilege usually restricted to UN member states.

The text of the Palestine National Charter as amended in 1968 contains many clauses calling for the destruction of the state of Israel. In letters exchanged between Arafat and Rabin in conjunction with the 1993 Oslo Accords, Arafat agreed that those clauses would be removed. On 26 April, 1996, the Palestine National Council voted to nullify or amend all such clauses, and called for a new text to be produced. A letter from Arafat to US President Clinton in 1998 listed the clauses concerned, and a meeting of the Palestine Central Committee approved that list. A public meeting of PLO, PNC and PCC members also confirmed the letter in Clinton's presence. Nevertheless, a new text of the Charter has never been produced.CBS NEWS (http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/11/07/60minutes/main582487.shtml) -The PLO today -

Yasser Arafat diverted nearly $1 billion in public funds to insure his political survival, but a lot more is unaccounted for.

"Arafat for years would cry poor, saying, 'I can't pay the salaries, we're gonna have a disaster here, the Palestinian economy is going to collapse,'" says Indyk. "And we would all mouth those words: 'The Palestinian economy is going to collapse if we don't do something about this.' But at the same time, he's accumulating hundreds of millions of dollars."

All told, U.S. officials estimate Arafat's personal nest egg at between $1 billion and $3 billion. http://www.theage.com.au/ffxImage/urlpicture_id_1047749776094_2003/03/18/arafat,0.jpg

[Luke T.]

CHA-CHING! (http://www.randi.org/vbulletin/showthread.php?s=&action=showpost&postid=1870254052)

Date/time stamped. 12-31-2003 06:41 PM

Lucianarchy's got nothing on me! :D

[Darat]

I don’t think there is any evidence (at least for the last 4 or 5 years) that he would ever have considered a "peace settlement" based on any form of compromise. (Plus of course he was thieving git. Perhaps if he had spent some of his stolen billions to provide health care for the Palestinians he might have used it himself and still be alive today. But then he wouldn’t have been the person he was.)

With the decision over the Gaza settlements and his "leadership" gone there will now be some change; all I'm hoping for is that whilst some of the changes will probably be for the worse, more will be for the better.

[TillEulenspiegel]

Let Us just hope that his death will give all the peace his life deprived Us in his life.

[zenith-nadir]

Originally posted by Darat
...all I'm hoping for is that whilst some of the changes will probably be for the worse, more will be for the better. Originally posted by TillEulenspiegel
Let Us just hope that his death will give all the peace his life deprived Us in his life.I third that desire for peace. Israelis and Palestinians deserve it. This is the first chance in 50 years to turn a new page in the Middle East. It is a historic chance to finally find peace.

Will the moderates win the day and obligate Israel to negotiate or will Hamas, Hezbollah, Syria, Islamic Jihad, Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades and Iran undermine the Palestinian Authority and ruin it for everyone?

[edited to add this OP-ed piece]

Arafat the monster (http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2004/11/11/arafat_the_monster/) In a better world, the PLO chief would have met his end on a gallows, hanged for mass murder much as the Nazi chiefs were hanged at Nuremberg. In a better world, the French president would not have paid a visit to the bedside of such a monster. In a better world, George Bush would not have said, on hearing the first reports that Arafat had died, "God bless his soul."

God bless his soul? What a grotesque idea! Bless the soul of the man who brought modern terrorism to the world? Who sent his agents to slaughter athletes at the Olympics, blow airliners out of the sky, bomb schools and pizzerias, machine-gun passengers in airline terminals?

How is it possible to reflect on Arafat's most enduring legacy -- the rise of modern terrorism -- without recalling the legions of men, women, and children whose lives he and his followers destroyed? If Osama bin Laden were on his deathbed, would we neglect to mention all those he murdered on 9/11?

Perhaps his signal contribution to the practice of political terror was the introduction of warfare against children. On one black date in May 1974, three PLO terrorists slipped from Lebanon into the northern Israeli town of Ma'alot. They murdered two parents and a child whom they found at home, then seized a local school, taking more than 100 boys and girls hostage and threatening to kill them unless a number of imprisoned terrorists were released. When Israeli troops attempted a rescue, the terrorists exploded hand grenades and opened fire on the students. By the time the horror ended, 25 people were dead; 21 of them were children.

Thirty years later, no one speaks of Ma'alot anymore.

[Regnad Kcin]

(sigh) Now there's just one Beatle left.

[BPSCG]

Originally posted by zenith-nadir
In a better world, the PLO chief would have met his end on a gallows, hanged for mass murder much as the Nazi chiefs were hanged at Nuremberg. In a better world, the French president would not have paid a visit to the bedside of such a monster. In a better world, George Bush would not have said, on hearing the first reports that Arafat had died, "God bless his soul."

God bless his soul? What a grotesque idea! Bless the soul of the man who brought modern terrorism to the world? Who sent his agents to slaughter athletes at the Olympics, blow airliners out of the sky, bomb schools and pizzerias, machine-gun passengers in airline terminals?
I said this in another thread: You note Bush was very careful not to say something like, "I'm sorry to hear that," or "It's a blow to peace," or "It's a great loss for the Palestinian people"

Bush was saying, in language any devout Christian could understand, "Now that he's dead, I hope God deals mercifully with him, because he's going to need all the mercy he can get."

What's the President of the United States supposed to say in front of the cameras? "It's about time"? "He was a scum bucket"? "Hey, didja see The Sopranos last night?"