> Three quarters of a century ago, Spain fought a civil war against Hitler and Mussolini ally Francisco Franco. During this war Germany and Italy committed one of the most famous atrocities of modern warfare.
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> On a market day, when it would kill the most people, they dropped one hundred thousand pounds of explosives and firebombs on the Basque village of Guernica. Wave after wave of planes bombed and strafed the village until it was mostly rubble, and a third of the civilian population dead . Like much of the Spanish civil war, Guernica was an opportunity for Hitler and Mussolini to test their weapons of mass destruction on easy targets - in preparation for WWII.
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> The world was shocked; Picasso commemorated the massacre in his famous mural Guernica. A copy hangs behind the speakers podium of the U.N. Security Council.
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> Last week, just before Colin Powell was to make the case for the invasion of Iraq, a blue curtain was raised to hide Guernica. A depiction of the horrors of war, it was decided, is an "inappropriate" background for council deliberations.
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> Is it possible that the parallels are too appropriate? There is no comparison between Saddam’s brutal rule, and the democratically elected Spanish Republic; but is the U.S. government starting a war for world domination of the same sort Hitler and Mussolini did in the last century? In the first battle of that war, does it intend to test it’s weapons of mass destruction against an easy target - the civilian population of Iraq?
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> Mr. Bush. Mr. Powell. Mr. Cheney. Ms. Rice. Mr. Rumsfield. This anti-war movement won’t let you hide behind a blue curtain. All your fine words and pet reporters can’t conceal the reality of your plans. We say "No" to destruction! No to havoc. No to chaos and fire and murder and massacre. No new Guernica! No new Guernica! No new Guernica!