President Bush has told Hamas, which just managed a stunning upset of Fatah in the Palestinian elections, that the movement must "renounce violence" if it is to be bestowed the blessing of having the U.S. recognize it as the government of the Palestinian people.

Of course, the Israeli government doesn't have to renounce violence in order to have U.S. recognition.

One can argue about the tactics Hamas has employed, which involve blowing up Israeli civilians, but then, that's exactly what the Israeli government has its military forces do--blow up and gun down Palestinian civilians--only Israel has bigger weapons.

I'm no advocate of violence by anybody, but the idea of this president, who thumbed his nose at the Nuremburg Charter and committed the number one international crime--a "Crime Against Peace," as the charter puts it--and who has been leading a war against Iraq that a new report in the British medical journal Lancet claims has killed between 150-250,000 Iraqis, to lecture Hamas on the need to renounce violence is simply beyond the pale.

Bush, remember, is now pushing for major violence against Iran, and maybe Syria too. the truth is that violence is the only real policy this administration has when it comes to international affairs. "Do it our way or we'll blow you up" is the Bush foreign policy credo.

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