Given Iraq’s strategic location, its large oil reserves, and the suffering of the Iraqi people, we cannot afford to replace a despot with chaos. It would be a tragedy if we removed a tyrant in Iraq only to leave chaos in its wake.
Joe Biden, Promises to Keep (2008)
- Nisqually Chief Quiemuth is murdered in Olympia on November 19, 1856. (historylink.org)
In the early-morning hours of November 19, 1856, Nisqually Chief Quiemuth (d. 1856), a half-brother of Chief Leschi (1808-1858), is murdered in Olympia. Both Leschi and Quiemuth had fought white settlers and soldiers in the Indian Wars of 1855 and 1856, but Quiemuth had tired of war, and shortly after Leschi’s capture, had surrendered into the custody of Territorial Governor Isaac Stevens (1818-1862). Later the same night, as he is resting in Stevens’s home while awaiting transfer to Fort Steilacoom, he is shot and stabbed to death. The assailant will never be positively identified and no one will ever be convicted of the crime.