Bush: U.S. must defeat terrorists
President Bush, delivering a Memorial Day message surrounded by the graves of thousands of military dead, said Monday that the United States must continue fighting the war on terrorism in the name of those who have given their lives in the cause.
“The best way to pay respect is to value why a sacrifice was made,” Bush said, quoting from a letter that Lt. Mark Dooley wrote to his parents before being killed last September in the Iraqi city of Ramadi.
Noting that some 270 fighting men and women of the nearly 2,500 who have fallen since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, are buried at Arlington National Cemetery, Bush said, “We have seen the costs in the war on terror that we fight today.”
The nation can best honor the dead by “defeating the terrorists. … and by laying the foundation for a generation of peace,” Bush said.
The president spoke after laying a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknowns. He ventured across the Potomac River just a short time after signing into law a bill that restricts protests at military funerals.
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico
More detainees join hunger strike
The number of Guantanamo Bay detainees participating in a hunger strike has ballooned from three to around 75, the U.S. military said Monday, revealing growing defiance among prisoners held for up to 4 1/2 years with no end in sight.
Navy Cmdr. Robert Durand called the hunger strike at the U.S. naval base in southeastern Cuba an “attention-getting” tactic to step up pressure for the inmates’ release. He said it might be related to a May 18 clash between detainees and guards that injured six prisoners.
Defense lawyers said the hunger strike, which began last year, reflects increasing frustration among men who have had little contact with the world outside the remote prison.
FERNLEY, Nev.
GI’s widow fights for Wiccan symbol
A war widow who wants the government to put a Wiccan religious symbol on her husband’s memorial plaque held an alternative Memorial Day service Monday as a protest.
“This is discrimination against our religion,” Roberta Stewart said at the gathering of about 200 for her late husband, Sgt. Patrick Stewart. “I ask you to help us remember that all freedoms are worth fighting for.”
The Department of Veterans Affairs has refused to grant the Stewart family’s request to have the Wiccan pentacle, a five-pointed star inside a circle, placed on the government- issued plaque.
Stewart, 34, was killed in Afghanistan on Sept. 25 when a rocket-propelled grenade struck his helicopter. He was posthumously awarded the Bronze Star and the Purple Heart.
MADRID, Spain
Europe to help turn back migrants
European countries far removed from Spain’s immigration crisis in the Canary Islands pledged Monday to send planes and patrol boats to help stem the flood of destitute Africans seeking a better life, officials said.
Some 400 migrants arrived on the islands by boat over the weekend. Authorities have intercepted more than 6,000 migrants since January compared with 4,751 caught during all of last year.
Spain estimates that in addition to its own planes and vessels monitoring small, crowded boats that bring migrants from West Africa to the Canary Islands, the new plan requires at least five patrol boats, five helicopters and a surveillance aircraft, Deputy Interior Minister Antonio Camacho told a meeting of the European Union.