Top U.S. and U.K administrators sent secret memo about fixing facts on Iraq...
 

Apparently this story first started circulating a little more than a week ago, but the American media has been completely silent. It also seems like 88 congressmen have been circulating a letter asking Bush to respond to memo, but the administration has failed to say a word.

Why isn't this a bigger story here?

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article...593607,00.html
..And for those who believe that we needed to take out Saddam to because he was an evil man..
The Chicago Tribune has been the only American source I've been able to find that has even mentioned the story...
http://www.chicagotribune.com/servic...ered.intercept

Tex, I have posted about the Blair secret memo twice, recently:
http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showthr...mo#post1774882

http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showthr...mo#post1777180

Maybe highlighting this "smoking gun". they way you chose to, will generate some responses. IMO, those who are open to the process of discovering what Bush and his administration knew and premeditated regarding Iraqi WMD and the invasion of Iraq, vs. what they said to the world, have probably received enough info to form an opinion. Those who support the "massive intelligence failure" that misled our president into going to war, but it is still the right thing because a "vicious dictator who gassed his own people" has been removed, and America has brought the gift of freedom to the Iraqi people, explanation from this administration, will ignore or not be swayed by the secret memo's contents.

Well, there are so much more important things to worry about like the Michael Jackson Trial with regular breaks to update us on the Runaway Bride situation.

To paraphrase Lewis Black, when the so-called fourth estate covers the superficial when the substantial is staring them in the face, it's a wonder, we as a people, don't rise up and slay them.

There's certainly more to say, but I recall seeing a copy of the letter signed by a number of Congressmen and Congresswomen (the only one I remember is Barney Frank...) addressed to President Bush. I want to find that before I say anything else.

Maybe instead of constantly posting inflammitory posts about those of us who support the war (still), trying to truely understand why we do.

I personally dont care how they justified the war. It's justified in my opinion simply because the good will outnumber the bad. You screaming at us about how there were lies, how he was oil hungry, how whatever else doesnt sway me. Not because I dont believe it, but because I dont care. The Iraqi people will be much better off at the end of this, and I believe they will look on us as we look on FDR doing shady things to attempt to provolk us into war with Germany. Most wont have a problem with it because hindsight grants clarity of vision. I'll let history judge my stance on it, not you.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Well thank God you have been blessed with the powers of prophecy, Seaver.

Explain to me how you think you know that the Iraqi people will be better off from this.

Try explaining that to the hundreds of thousands of dead Iraqis. I'm sure they'll give you an enthusiastic response. The thing is you are imposing your own Western philosophies on people who aren't Western.

It may seem wrong to you that there are so many terrorists actively fighting against the United States military in Iraq, but I don't see you or anybody else I know rolling over in the case of an active invasion onto our soil.

The simple fact is, members of the current administration and their friends are making money off of our dead, and the dead Iraqis.

Our boys are dying in the streets of Iraq, some due to lack of body armor, for oil, money and a war president.

The fact is, there is scant evidence that September 11th was orchestrated by the Middle East, and there is no evidence it was done by Iraq. And the hypocrisy will continue until each and every one of the hundreds of third world despots are brought to justice. You don't see that happening in Africa when THOUSANDS were slaughtered, and I don't see that being the case in Kuwait 15 years ago.

North Korea has shown evidence they have nuclear weapons, and are launching missles into the sea of Japan. Now, I'm just going to throw this out here, but can you imagine if Iraq had done that?

Yet they didn't. And yet here we are, spending 300 000 000 dollars to private interests for a base in the middle east to expand our imperial domain. And I don't see anybody shocked as to the amount of oil in this country, either.

So to recap, many Iraqi civilians are dead and dying while others enjoy the same amount of power (talking kilowatts here) as in the Saddam era (Where's the beef, Halliburton?), and far less peace.

Mission Accomplished

No, you're right.

Genocidal dictatorships are better for the people.

There have been threads about this already...I'm sure we'll get a forthcoming response from the president...
http://www.photodump.com/direct/totino/bushfinger.jpg

Seaver, I'm not going to argue the merits of going to war in Iraq. That's for another thread. You may be right, you may be wrong. It is irrelevant.

Because the point of this story is that Bush and Blair intentionally lied to their respective countries in order to gather enough support to allow them to start a war. Think about that. Two individuals were able to start a war by concocting a series of lies. Is this how our democracy works? That our Presidents get to start any war they want, as long as they can lie successfully at the outset to generate sufficient support?

If Bush had told the truth about Iraq, made a fair case, and then asked the American people and Congress to give him the authority to start this war, then things would be different. If he told the truth, and Americans still decided to support the war, then things would be different.

But that didn't happen. Bush lied to the American public in order to drum up support for a war he desired for other reasons. One individual decided he wanted to go to war, and bamboozled most of the country into supporting him. My God. This is what matters, Seaver.

And yes, I already started an earlier thread on this post: link.

Congress's letter to the President was leaked last weekend. You can find it here:

http://www.house.gov/judiciary_democ...emoltr5505.pdf

Doc Hastings (R-WA) signed it, so this isn't just the dems diddling the pres.

WOW... so many differing attacks thrown blindly into the night.

1) Because my friends are over there. They tell me constantly how glad MOST Iraqis are about us being there. They tell me how every single week at least one mother would tell them stories about how one day their child did not come home for innumeral different reasons. They tell me how Iraqis have pride once again in their country, and how they openly cried when casting their ballot.

2) The death of the Iraqis is extrememly unfortunate. But I'm willing to bet that the death of a few will prevent the death of many more. Look up the death tolls after the infandata.

3) Little evidence? Al Quaeda admitted it was them.

4) North Korea claims to have nuclear weapons, yet I have not seen, nor has anyone seen any evidence that they have one working. The seismic waves they cause are heard around the world, so it's no coverup. There has been one very large explosion but they did not have the double-wave of a nuclear (initial blast required to super-condense the nuclear material).

5) I think we should have immediately stopped the slaughters taken place in Africa. Both Bush and Clinton have the blood of millions on their hands because of that, and it makes me sick.

And please dont act like you care more about the troops than me. I have many friends over there, many of whom have been injured. Every single one of them fully supports this war because they see the truth in what is going on. While not all the troops like the war, there is always the full spectrum, I'm willing to trust them before any news journalist with an adjenda.

More media sources are chiming in on the lack of media attention:


http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=2511

MEDIA ADVISORY:
Smoking Gun Memo?
Iraq Bombshell Goes Mostly Unreported in US Media

May 10, 2005

Journalists typically condemn attempts to force their colleagues to disclose
anonymous sources, saying that subpoenaing reporters will discourage efforts
to expose government wrongdoing. But such warnings seem like mere
self-congratulation when clear evidence of wrongdoing emerges, with no
anonymous sources required-- and major news outlets virtually ignore it.

A leaked document that appeared in a British newspaper offered clear new
evidence that U.S. intelligence was shaped to support the drive for war.
Though the information rocked British Prime Minister Tony Blair's re-election
campaign when it was revealed, it has received little attention in the U.S.
press.

The document, first revealed by the London Times (5/1/05), was the minutes of
a July 23, 2002 meeting in Blair's office with the prime minister's close
advisors. The meeting was held to discuss Bush administration policy on Iraq,
and the likelihood that Britain would support a U.S. invasion of Iraq. "It
seemed clear that Bush had made up his mind to take military action, even if
the timing was not yet decided," the minutes state.

The minutes also recount a visit to Washington by Richard Dearlove, the head
of the British intelligence service MI6: "There was a perceptible shift in
attitude. Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove
Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and
WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy."

That last sentence is striking, to say the least, suggesting that the policy
of invading Iraq was determining what the Bush administration was presenting
as "facts" derived from intelligence. But it has provoked little media
follow-up in the United States. The most widely circulated story in the
mainstream press came from the Knight Ridder wire service (5/6/05), which
quoted an anonymous U.S. official saying the memo was ''an absolutely accurate
description of what transpired" during Dearlove's meetings in Washington.

Few other outlets have pursued the leaked memo's key charge that the "facts
were being fixed around the policy." The New York Times (5/2/05) offered a
passing mention, and the Charleston (W.V.) Gazette (5/5/05) wrote an editorial
about the memo and the Iraq War. A columnist for the Cox News Service
(5/8/05) also mentioned the memo, as did Molly Ivins (WorkingForChange.com,
5/10/05). Washington Post ombudsman Michael Getler (5/8/05) noted that Post
readers had complained about the lack of reporting on the memo, but offered no
explanation for why the paper virtually ignored the story.

In a brief segment on hot topics in the blogosphere (5/6/05), CNN
correspondent Jackie Schechner reported that the memo was receiving attention
on various websites, where bloggers were "wondering why it's not getting more
coverage in the U.S. media." But acknowledging the lack of coverage hasn't
prompted much CNN coverage; the network mentioned the memo in two earlier
stories regarding its impact on Blair's political campaign (5/1/05, 5/2/05),
and on May 7, a short CNN item reported that 90 Congressional Democrats sent a
letter to the White House about the memo-- but neglected to mention the
possible manipulation of intelligence that was mentioned in the memo and the
Democrats' letter.

Salon columnist Joe Conason posed this question about the story:

"Are Americans so jaded about the deceptions perpetrated by our own government
to lead us into war in Iraq that we are no longer interested in fresh and
damning evidence of those lies? Or are the editors and producers who oversee
the American news industry simply too timid to report that proof on the
evening broadcasts and front pages?"

As far as the media are concerned, the answer to Conason's second question
would seem to be yes. A May 8 New York Times news article asserted that
"critics who accused the Bush administration of improperly using political
influence to shape intelligence assessments have, for the most part, failed to
make the charge stick." It's hard for charges to stick when major media are
determined to ignore the evidence behind them.

________________________________________________________________________

I wonder if journalists are afraid of being another Dan Rather if this document proves to be a forgery.

As i recall, everyone in the world agreed with our intelligence at the time. They just didnt see it as a threat to THEM.

Anywho, hindsight is definitely 20/20 and their is no point in moaning about Coulda Woulda Shoulda.

I dunno about that, there were weapons inspector after weapons inspector saying there were NO weapons of mass destruction. Over and over and over NO weapons of mass destruction. Even right up to the war everyone but the US was saying there were NO weapons of mass destruction. The best we could come up with when Colin Powell went before the UN were some satelite photos of some trucks.. sitting in front of a few buildings or a few bunkers. In those trucks, buildings and bunkers could have been ANYTHING, yet magically we "knew" it was stuffed full of weapons of mass destruction. So we kill our way in there and find nothing and what do we hear? "err... the Russians took em! Yea, thats the ticket!" or the ever-popular "uhh... they must have.. took them into... syria... we should hit them next!"

There's every reason to whine about woulda coulda shoulda. This is why we have prisons and laws. So someone kills your mother on the street in cold blood... well.. woulda coulda shoulda. Someone orders the invasion of a country on fabricated "facts" and blatant lies, resulting in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people... well.. woulda coulda shoulda... the ones that survive will be better off, trust us!

Thats wrong. But you're slightly right.. the whining should change.. to action.

Hundreds of thousands of people now?

One hundred million, even.

Mayhaps, soon, a billion?

Well i can't seem to find a count on # of Iraqi fighters and insurgents that have been killed. The civilian casualties are listed anywhere from 24,000 - 100,000. + Nearly 2000 coalition troops, + contractor deaths (200+), + the spain train bombing (which was caused because of the iraq war). So lets consider 24k-100k dead civilians, now try to imagine how many of our bullets/bombs/missles/etc ACTUALLY HIT THEIR TARGETS, and you can try to calculate the insurgent/iraqi fighter deaths. Lets say the US killed 2 "bad guys" for every civilian, that makes for ~50k - 200k "enemy" deaths.

When i say "people" i dont just mean civilians. I don't just mean coalition troops, and i dont just mean US troops. Unless you don't consider Iraqi fighters or "insurgents" people.

Edit: Keep in mind that these numbers are pretty old ones, and have most likely grown since. The numbers have not stopped rising and will only continue to mount up. How many more will satisfy?

The Spain train bombing was not caused by the Iraqi War. Those terrorists had been there LONG before that, and had probably recieved training prior to that.

Drawing a parallel of that is like claiming eating fruit made someone fat. While it's possible, it's more likely due to the fact he's been eating junkfood for the prior 10 years.

I'm pretty sure the reason given for the bombing was an attempt to force spain out of iraq and/or effect the elections in a way that would push spain out of Iraq. Atleast thats what all the news agencies were blasting out, and it was certainly the effect.

Edit: and yea, im aware of the other reasons, there was more than one objective, however.

Obie, that was the justification for it. The terrorist network has been in Spain LONG before they entered the war. To say a group started to work for a goal in hindsight doesnt work.

They are using that as a justification for their existance, although they've been around long before it. Sorry if I dont buy their explaination. They see Spain as a previous Islamic territory, they want to see it go back to that. That was their goal when the unit started.

Much Better!

THANK YOU!!

I could have sworn that just after the Spain bombing, conservatives were nearly up in arms over how the Spainards were capitulating to terrorists by voting out the politicians who supported the war in Iraq.

Now, when the discussion is how many people have died as an affect of the Iraq war, the event is unrelated?

That seems rather convenient.

You misunderstand me.

The terrorist group that did the bombing existed long before the Iraq war. Their goals of installing an Islamic government there were stated long before the Iraq war. What I was saying is them claiming their bombing was because of the Iraq war is foolhearty to believe. If I've been punching you in the face for 5 years, and then you suddenly key my car... does that justify me punching you the previous 5 years? No, it doesn't work like that.

i do not understand your logic, seaver.
i do not see how you understand the relation between the two parts of your argument: that the group that carried out the bombings in the subways in spain might have existed prior to the iraq war means that there is no causal linkage between the bombings and the iraq war. are you saying that for there to have been a causal linkage, the group would have had to form itself after the war with the express intent of carrying out an action as a protest against the war?

but isn't your position like saying that the american military existed before the iraq war so what they do in iraq is not causally connected to the iraq war?
am i missing something?

Lebell, I've read the guidelines and I am not sure if I crossed the line, but I am trying to tone it down and be as civil as possible, and if I have offended anyone I apologize, as that is not my intent.

We all have friends over there, and I am not questioning your patriotism or anything of that kind. It's blind faith to assume that we are automatically making things better for the Iraqi people, and I am not willing to make that assumption. I question it not because I doubt its veracity but because I am not prepared to make the mistake of blind devotion to corruption. Iraq is not Vietnam, but in any war people fight, and people die. No one should make the mistake of disrespecting the fallen with assumptions.

There are soldiers who do not support this war, and there are soldiers who do support it. I've listened to deserters, objectors, wounded, and rabid supporters in the military. There is no consensus. There are Iraqis who may in public deride the previous government, but I question the ability of a soldier wearing the uniform of the United States military to ascertain any kind of truth. I vote, but I question the difference my vote makes, or has ever made. It really does not matter.

I am trying to keep an open mind, as much as that has been mocked by as many people as it has, and to you it seems to matter whether I am a journalist, or a soldier, or a student of history, or a twelve year old boy with a military legacy. It doesn't matter if I am the Commander of West Point or the President of the United States, because it doesn't make the truth any more readily available to me. I am attempting to understand this mess, and that is all.

Your third point is Al Qaeda admits it was them. Why do you trust a terrorist organization to tell us the truth? (Sure, it sounds ridiculous, but just think) All I am saying is there is no proof either way that it was or it was not Al Qaeda. If there is any proof, the Government of the United States of America is not willing to tell us. A passport from the plane that crashed into the WTC North Tower, and two highly disputed phone calls that reputedly took place from the plane that crashed into a field in Pennsylavania. That is the proof. And it has absolutely no connection with Iraq. None.

Any death is unfortunate, whether in Somalia or Iraq. There seems to be less and less caring now. I do not think it is a far leap to say we are in Iraq because of 9/11, and I just wonder why the deaths of 3 030 people on 9/11/01 is more momentous, more important, and a reason for the deaths of Iraqis, or as of today, 1 676 American soldiers.

For posterity, that number is 20 000 'tagged and bagged' and reported from morgues (iraqbodycount.com) and is by any criteria, an underestimate. The Lancet study did a statistical analysis based on 998 houses and projected it to the population, and arrived at 100 000 Iraqi civilians dead.

visual aid: http://www.infoshout.com/iraq%20death%20toll.htm

No one should sit down and say our dead take priority over their dead. We are all humans, and that is what I am afraid of forgetting in this madness.

That wasn't what I said, or meant, and I find this kind of offensive.

You don't have to pick between extremes, or assume you must be a communist if not a neocon.

What is your point here? I gave my justification above and you dismiss it without consideration.

You both know about this:
You know that the Bush administration has admitted that there were no WMD in Iraq, as they described them in 2002 and in early 2003, and that they had no evidence that WMD were transferred out of Iraq.

Can either of you post your opinion on how high the resulting death count of an invasion and a war that was contrived under the circumstances described above: <h3>Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy.</h3>?

Your posts, quoted above, lead me to suspect that neither of you is yet ready to consider the possibility that your president, and the PM of the UK, and high ranking civilian and military government officials in the U.S. and in the UK, should be investigated and tried for war crimes against humanity by an independent, interntaional, prosecutorial entity. That, however, is the sad, current state of affairs that Bush, Blair, et al, have put themselves, and us, in.
I answered your question here, Mojo_PeiPei :http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showpos...0&postcount=10
I told you "how Bush is a war criminal". Is your reaction to split hairs with ObieX on the reported number of war related deaths in Iraq. I'll provide some more info on the number of deaths, but understand that the U.S. position when the Nazis were prosecuted was that the principle crime was initiating aggressive war and invasion against other jurisdictions for political purposes.
The developments today make a convincing argument that the US and UK have now done exactly that. If this is true, the war crimes accusations are valid, whether they result in one death or in a million.

You can correctly say that the pretenses to the war were false, but you will have a hard time proving that Bush knowingly lied, you can assert it because it is a possibility. However if there isn't 100% certainty then you have a problem as far as accusing Bush of "war crimes" because the law of our land, the only law that matters in this case says Bush did nothing wrong. The constitution provides for "common defence" as such the President of the United States is allowed to act in good faith, which he did by getting a resolution passed through by congress authorizing force in the Iraq conflict. As far as international law goes, it's a joke, a joke which has no authority or force. It also seems in the current political scheme it is something that is arbitrarily enforced or referred on the whims of political necessity by various countries or groups of people.

There are still people citing the Lancet crapshoot?

On the contrary, it is exactly what you said.

"Explain to me how you think you know that the Iraqi people will be better off from this."

The two options you laid out there are:

1) Invasion.
2) No invasion.

You do have to pick between the two "extremes" in this case, because you were talking about a one or the other concept. You assert that the Iraqis would be better off had we not invaded. Ergo, you are asserting that Saddam's genocidal dictatorship is better for the Iraqi people.

No, it isn't. I did not lay out either of those two options, and you quote me as asking you how you know they will be better off from our invasion. Not an invasion.

There were all sorts of options available that did not involve the United States performing the role of Clint Eastwood that you do not seem to be entertaining as possibilies, and you might have reasons for that. Regardless, they existed at that point in time, whether or not you agree they would have been as "effective".

That is what I said.

Looks like CNN has finally decided to report this story:
http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/05/11/bri...emo/index.html

Maybe other news organizations will start to do their job now.
I don't understand how any rational person can honestly defend the Bush administration on this.

Well..... the WAPO ombusman commented on the lack of coverage, but offered no explanation and no criticism of the Washington Post:
IMO, there is no way to over emphasize the following excerpt, by isolating it from it's place in the thread starter:

I agree wholly with Host here. There's a lot of bickering in this thread over whether or not the Iraq war was a good thing. That's for another thread. The key point here, and really, this can't be understated, is that regardless of whether the war is right or wrong, Bush altered the facts and misrepresented the reasons for war in order to trick the United States and several other nations into supported a war he desired.

Does nobody else have a problem with this?

edited for grammar

Mojo_PeiPei, how many American troops and innocent Iraqi civilians must suffer the loss of life or limb before you would be willing to consider reacting to the results of Bush and his administration's provocations and pretenses designed to provoke invasion and war, without your tendencies, up to now, to divert the issue to disputing the numbers of reported casualties, or by making your argument quoted above?

What increase in the numbers of dead would influence a shift in your focus to a willingness to consider that now that the WMD fabrication is neutered and exposed for what it actually was......."intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy.", there is a possibility based upon results of weapons inspections in Iraq, and this reported "secret memo", validated by officials in the UK Labour government, in affirming statements, and in a total lack of reports of any efforts to dispute the accuracy of the contents of the memo, even on the eve of last week's national election in th UK, that Bush himself committed high treason and violations of his oath of office? Are articles of impeachment, under these circumstances, that far fetched a possibility?

If not, how many American troops would need to be ordered to fight and then die under fabricated and misleading circumstances, defending against non-existant threats to U.S. security? For an invasion for a declared purpose of pre-emptively eliminating a WMD program that was described and sold to the American people as an imminent threat to our "national security" but now is disclosed by reliable sources, to be merely, ."intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy."

You were an ardent defender and believer, Mojo_, up until last week, when you conceded that you had not seen White House admissions that there is no evidence of Iraqi WMD transfers to Syria or to other hidden, foreign sites. I would think that these unexpected reports would surprise and anger you, now, or at some point. Does it not disturb you that lack of WMD discovery and the contents of the UK "secret memo" seem eeirily reminiscent to the following?
I am disturbed, and I expected since before the invasion that this comparison was relevant. When you allow for this possibility, and I think that you will at some point, I predict that you won't be posting a "so what" defense of Bush and Blair and their respective administrations.............
Mojo_, can you see yourself, fifteen years from now, explaining to your children that you defended this presidential administration's invasion and occupation of Iraq, considering what you have been exposed to by your participation in this forum, and by living in the U.S. in these times? How would you explain your quoted statement and your defense of Bush's invasion to them?

Yes I can see myself defending this war to my children in 15 years. As myself and other have stated here before, the who/what/why's are someone elses means to an end, not mine. I see Bushs actions, regardless of motives, as correcting one of the worlds greatest injustices through our action in Iraq. We hung those people out to dry after Gulf War I and we put them in a world of hell with the sanctions. Because of Saddam it is not a lie or exaggeration to say that MILLIONS of people are dead because he had no regard for his own people, HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of people are dead because the guy was a total paranoid nutbar, now he'll never be able to hurt anyone again. I have always been big on the saying that all evil needs to succeed is for good men to do nothing, well we did nothing and millions upon million needlessly suffered... I see our action in Iraq as finally doing something in a mess we started. What you fail to realize is that words or bureaucracy(sp) (read the UN and it's actions) have no power and no authority, they don't get shit accomplished, all they are is hot air. I would've been fine with going into Iraq without the build up of WMD's, it was our mess to fix.

On top of that, I know the world will be a better place for them as Americans to grow up in because of our actions now. People like you are too shortsighted and blind to the policy behind the actions, that being the bottomline. We will never fully know the effects of our actions, because I'm willing to bet the farm that a great deal of drama and conflict is being averted by American blood in Iraq. As such in the long run America will be a stronger nation for this, as this action in Iraq keeps the world political landscape favorable to us.

Yes I have a huge problem with it. We have this kind of thing come out and the unwavering support by Republicans continues for Bush. The mentality is almost like "so what Bush lied to us for our own good." That argument is pretty rediculous. The end justifies the means I guess (even though I don't happen to agree with the end).

The exact same thing can be turned around. There is unwavering opposition to Bush by the Liberals here. Everything I hear is he lied, he's a puppet, he's trying to take over the world, he's hitler (my personal fav.).

If you actually look at a lot of us conservatives we dont support him in everything. In almost all of his social changes (gay marriage, etc) I oppose him. What I dont see is people on the left coming across the isle on topics and admitting when he is right.

If you believe there is some interconnectedness between the fact that you do not support Bush's social policies and a requirement that liberals should therefore admit he was right on some unnamed topic, you are incorrect.

There may indeed be something in Bush's policies that I agree with. However, when it comes to the most important policies, there is nothing I agree with. The war, not even close. Taxes and the economy, polar opposites. Social Security, zero compatibility. I could go on.

Maybe his rather minor disapproval of the Minute Man project - I can agree with him on that, though I would still fault him in that regard for not disapproving of it enough. (And even still, I'm quite confident he only mumored his disapproval to pander for Hispanic votes for the Republican party.)

But I don't see how your disapproval of his social policies requires anyone to agree with any of his policies.

Is the rather minor and few topics for which I might agree with his policies somehow supposed to counter balance the reality that he flat out manipulated America, the UN and the World in order to start a war?

For the record Manx, Bush only manipulated America, he told the UN and the world to piss off.

I feel much better.

Of course, that's not true. He manipulated them AND told them to fuck off when they weren't buying the lies.

Yeah.....if you give your kids the background info, so they'll know who "get shit accomplished". Don't hold anything back, better that they hear it from you!

Is this a sign of momentum driven by a growing awareness, or an isolated gesture?

Families of fallen US Soldiers organization demand the immediate resignations of Bush, Cheney, and their cabinet officials so that "A return to private citizen status will mean that the people responsible for so much death and destruction will be able to be held accountable to the laws of our land and for damaging humanity so thoroughly."

Another meta-media experience? Perhaps the mainstream press has awakened.

www.truthout.org/docs_2005/051205A.shtml

Indignation Grows in US over British Prewar Documents
By John Daniszewski
The Los Angeles Times

Thursday 12 May 2005

Critics of Bush call them proof that he and Blair never saw diplomacy as an option with Hussein.
London - Reports in the British press this month based on documents indicating that President Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair had conditionally agreed by July 2002 to invade Iraq appear to have blown over quickly in Britain.

But in the United States, where the reports at first received scant attention, there has been growing indignation among critics of the Bush White House, who say the documents help prove that the leaders made a secret decision to oust Iraqi President Saddam Hussein nearly a year before launching their attack, shaped intelligence to that aim and never seriously intended to avert the war through diplomacy.

The documents, obtained by Michael Smith, a defense specialist writing for the Sunday Times of London, include a memo of the minutes of a meeting July 23, 2002, between Blair and his intelligence and military chiefs; a briefing paper for that meeting and a Foreign Office legal opinion prepared before an April 2002 summit between Blair and Bush in Texas.

The picture that emerges from the documents is of a British government convinced of the US desire to go to war and Blair's agreement to it, subject to several specific conditions.

Since Smith's report was published May 1, Blair's Downing Street office has not disputed the documents' authenticity. Asked about them Wednesday, a Blair spokesman said the report added nothing significant to the much-investigated record of the lead-up to the war.

"At the end of the day, nobody pushed the diplomatic route harder than the British government.... So the circumstances of this July discussion very quickly became out of date," said the spokesman, who asked not to be identified.

The leaked minutes sum up the July 23 meeting, at which Blair, top security advisors and his attorney general discussed Britain's role in Washington's plan to oust Hussein. The minutes, written by Matthew Rycroft, a foreign policy aide, indicate general thoughts among the participants about how to create a political and legal basis for war. The case for military action at the time was "thin," Foreign Minister Jack Straw was characterized as saying, and Hussein's government posed little threat.

Labeled "secret and strictly personal - UK eyes only," the minutes begin with the head of the British intelligence service, MI6, who is identified as "C," saying he had returned from Washington, where there had been a "perceptible shift in attitude. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and [weapons of mass destruction]. But the intelligence and the facts were being fixed around the policy."

Straw agreed that Bush seemed determined to act militarily, although the timing was not certain.

"But the case was thin," the minutes say. "Saddam was not threatening his neighbors, and his WMD capacity was less than that of Libya, North Korea or Iran."

Straw then proposed to "work up a plan for an ultimatum to Saddam" to permit United Nations weapons inspectors back into Iraq. "This would also help with the legal justification for the use of force," he said, according to the minutes.

Blair said, according to the memo, "that it would make a big difference politically and legally if Saddam refused to allow in the UN inspectors."

"If the political context were right, people would support regime change," Blair said. "The two key issues were whether the military plan worked and whether we had the political strategy to give the military plan the space to work."

In addition to the minutes, the Sunday Times report referred to a Cabinet briefing paper that was given to participants before the July 23 meeting. It stated that Blair had already promised Bush cooperation earlier, at the April summit in Texas.

"The UK would support military action to bring about regime change," the Sunday Times quoted the briefing as saying.

Excerpts from the paper, which Smith provided to the Los Angeles Times, said Blair had listed conditions for war, including that "efforts had been made to construct a coalition/shape public opinion, the Israel-Palestine crisis was quiescent," and options to "eliminate Iraq's WMD through the UN weapons inspectors" had been exhausted.

The briefing paper said the British government should get the US to put its military plans in a "political framework."

"This is particularly important for the UK because it is necessary to create the conditions in which we could legally support military action," it says.

In a letter to Bush last week, 89 House Democrats expressed shock over the documents. They asked if the papers were authentic and, if so, whether they proved that the White House had agreed to invade Iraq months before seeking Congress' OK.

"If the disclosure is accurate, it raises troubling new questions regarding the legal justifications for the war as well as the integrity of our own administration," the letter says.

"While the president of the United States was telling the citizens and the Congress that they had no intention to start a war with Iraq, they were working very close with Tony Blair and the British leadership at making this a foregone conclusion," the letter's chief author, Rep. John Conyers Jr. of Michigan, said Wednesday.

If the documents are real, he said, it is "a huge problem" in terms of an abuse of power. He said the White House had not yet responded to the letter.

Both Blair and Bush have denied that a decision on war was made in early 2002. The White House and Downing Street maintain that they were preparing for military operations as an option, but that the option to not attack also remained open until the war began March 20, 2003.

In January 2002, Bush described Iraq as a member of an "axis of evil," but the sustained White House push for Iraqi compliance with UN resolutions did not come until September of that year. That month, Bush addressed the UN General Assembly to outline a case against Hussein's government, and he sought a bipartisan congressional resolution authorizing the possible use of force.

In November 2002, the UN Security Council approved a resolution demanding that Iraq readmit weapons inspectors.

An effort to pass a second resolution expressly authorizing the use of force against Iraq did not succeed.

Okay, thirteen days after 89 congressman signed this letter
http://www.house.gov/judiciary_democ...emoltr5505.pdf

Here is the reported response from the propaganda ministry of our "war president":
The 89 congresspersons who signed the letter represent 600,000 people in each of the 89 congressional districts. The "war president" is responding to the letter with the reaction that there is "no need" to respond to an inquiry about this important new disclosure, to the congressional representatives of more than 50 million Americans.

Is there any point where Bush supporters, who exhibit such a low level of tolerance concerning the confirmation of Newsweek's recent report about "koran abuse", will consider it unreasonable for the president to openly avoid accountability about the circumstances that caused him to lead the U.S. to invade and occupy Iraq?

Soooo,

In one post you're are pissed that we were trying to stop him with diplomacy (using gas on his own people) and then when we decided to act...you are pissed.

Ok...

Oy. I can't believe I'm saying this yet again: the importance of this memo has nothing to do with whether you believe we should have invaded Iraq or not. Instead, its importance is entirely based on the issue of Bush and Blair concocting fake reasons to convince their populaces to support a war that the two of them wanted. It's about bamboozling, and lying to the public to gain support for a war rather than lay out an honest case.

For this, amongst other things, I'm quite certain that there's a special level of hell reserved for Bush.

As a neo-con I have a response for you.

*shrug*

By any means necessary. Of course, if one lie is acceptable - why not a dozen lies? Or nothing but lies? They're all acceptable if that's what it takes to "convince" the American public of what it doesn't know best. While we're subverting the American public, lets just get rid of this whole election thing anyway. I mean, since the American public clearly can't be trusted to do the "right thing", as defined by Ustwo and George Bush, why even give them the modicum of an option every 4 years?

But lo, if the lie is something totally innocuous, like an extra-marital affair - Ustwo will be leading the charge!

Hey, Ustwo, I have an idea. 4 years from now, lets all elect a Democratic president. Then, he or she will decide, quite rightly, that neocons are by and large machiavellian chickenhawsk whose megalomaniacal designs for world power trump any known sense of decency. So the new president, in a rare and brilliant moment of irony appreciation, decides its best to send all the neocons to Abu Ghraib - as prisoners. Now, this new president shouldn't have to try and convince the American public or Congress that this should happen on its merits, should he/she? No. See, the new president knows best, and whatever the preznit wants, the preznit gets. So the preznit will lie, claim that neocons helped undertake 9/11, that they gave WMD to Saddam Hussein (oh wait, that one's true, thanks Rummy), and then trick the American people into doing something they wouldn't otherwise do.

But that's OK, right? Cause preznit knows best.

...someone forgot to take their meds this morning.

You shrug? A bare-faced lie takes two nations to war, and you shrug? There seem to be some seriously myopia going around out there. I, personally, care very much that the intelligence was shaped to fit the policy, because that leads us to ask, what, then, shaped the policy, if not the intelligence? That SCARES me. It's like a fucking shadow play out there or something.

And THIS: That's even scarier.

Lebell, the talking point of the week is "Newsweek lied, people died". The following is a screencapture of the last speech that Bush made before the invasion and occupation of Iraq began.
The search words ("weapons" "mass" "destruction" "government" "threat" "disarm" "qaeda" "freedom" "free" "iraq" )are linked here:
http://64.233.167.104/search?q=cache...&hl=en&start=1
The words "democracy" and "democratic" are not found. There is only one reference to "free Iraq". New reasons to "fix the facts" came afterwards.
Here is an aptly titled reminder of how we got here:

<img src="http://me.to/images/svr018.gif">
<img src="http://me.to/images/svr020.gif">
<img src="http://me.to/images/svr021.gif">
<h4>Do you see the words "democratic" or "democracy", or much of an emphasis on anything but WMD, and a whole paragraph linking the discredited "Al Qaeda" link? "Deception" is highlighted at the top of the page. We want to know who intentionally deceived our country into invading and occupying another country.</h4>

I was talking about your posts, not the previous ones.

In one, you seem upset over the fact that Saddam was attacking his own people while we were engaging him. In another you seem upset that we engaged him.

As to the charge made ad naseum, we've been over this ground at least a dozen times.

I too could provide dozens upon dozens of cut and pasted articles where people from both sides of the aisle state Saddam had WMDs. I could paste all the violations of the UN resolutions. I could paste articles on the first gulf wars. Yada yada.

But you've made up it very clear that you've made up your mind. So why bother?

How ya been keeping up Labell? Looks like things are more nutty than usual here.

happy to be back ustwo? I've hardly felt the urge to post until this week in a long time.

welcome back

I've been mostly actively avoiding politics in my personal life so I'm not as well informed as I was a few months ago. Since the same topics are being discussed here as when I left it most likely won't hurt my arguments :lol:

-Robert H. Jackson

That is an interesting quote, and there is no denying that Robert H. Jackson was a man of many talents. But, if we are to base our arguments here at least in part on Justice Jackson - as Host would have us do, apparently - it is important to remember that current international law does not even offer a definition of aggression that could be applied to any trial of US citizens involved in the Iraq War. At least, I don't THINK that it does...it's on the books, but it's vague as vague can be.

The US - spanning years and multiple Administrations - has effectively spurned many of the ideas of Jackson regarding international law. I'm not saying whether this is good or bad, I'm just stating facts as they appear to me from official US policy stances over the years.

On another note, I fail to see why this topic is repeatedly jammed like a finger in my eye, and with such accusatory language. It's becoming insulting. The arguments presented here will most likely change NOT ONE SINGLE OPINION, and yet posters persevere? Haven't we reached a point where we have tired of the slick, sarcastic language, the information overload, and the attempts to use the English language to "one-up" perceived rivals on this forum?

The problem is that everyone who supports investigations on the Administration and Iraq needs to get someone who is willing to gather the evidence - THAT WILL STAND UP IN COURT UNDER SCRUTINY - and then get the indictments out! I have said it before and will say it again - I would support the rulings of a US court on any such investigation - even if it meant that Bush, Cheney, Rumsfield, etc. took a trip to Leavenworth as a result. I would hope that all of my fellow Republicans/Bush supporters would agree?

But you had better hurry, because these damn investigations take time, and there's always the very real possibility of Presidential pardons when the next person takes office. Hillary Clinton might not go the pardon route, but I could see Giuliani or Powell doing so in a hearbeat.

This is the issue that has me conflicted about the whole thing. I'm glad he's gone. Given the binary choice between Saddam/No Saddam, I suspect 100% of people on this forum would choose the second option.

There is significant good that comes of him being gone.


But it wasn't a binary choice. And what I see you writing, Seaver, is that ends justify the means. I'm no philosopher, but I don't buy that. I think good things can happen from bad means, but more often it goes the other way.

Two things here:

• [1]Time will tell the true cost
  [2]What happens next time?

It's way to early to determine if the outcomes will be good. Because of the choices made, there were costs to:

• Relations with the world
• Increase in terrorism
• Damage and trust between Administration and (some) public
• Cost of American life
• others?

Will the cost of those someday overwrite the benefit of Saddam being gone? Or does ANY amount of things on that list not outweigh Saddam being gone? I would find that hard to believe is your stance.

It's the second item that has my panties in a twist, however. It may have worked the first time (may being the operative word), but can you trust him next time?

Manipulating the American people to this degree can't be good. Doesn't that have a price? Or does it just not matter because Saddam is gone? That, too, is hard for me to believe.

In war the ends always justify the means. To think or act otherwise is inviting disaster. I do not think the American people were majorly manipulated by lies and whatnot. You will note who won the election in 2004. All of these 'facts' have been out there and quite frankly most of us dont' care or don't believe them.

For me the obvious conclusion is the straight forward one. The WMD reports were overstated, and Bush acted on the information he had. Had it been nothing but a lie, we wouldn't be having this debate because someone willing to mislead a nation into war would also have planted plenty of 'WMD' evidence. The iroinc thing is its the honesty of the Bush administration which allows people to claim they are dishonest. If the Bush admin was truely as bad and evil as they claim there wouldn't be debate since they would have covered their bases.

Those of you who embrace and support these pre-emptive, aggressive war policies of the Bush administration do not seem to recognize the effects on you personally that result from your empowerment of the Bush administration. You post your defenses, justifications, rationale for invading and occupying Iraq under false or at least circumstances misleading to the point that no argument can be made that it was necessary for our national security. None of you has apparently experienced a personal loss or the shedding of the blood of someone close to you because of this war.

You have suffered other losses, because you have crossed a threshhold of opinion and belief that permits and supports the conduct of the Bush administration. You no longer require sincere disclosure or justification by the CIC of the U.S. military before he orders the sons and daughters of other Americans into harms way. That is a big leap for you to make, and I have to ask you, <h4>How dare you? How the fuck do you dare to support, and as a result, empower the current president, or any president, to send a son of my family into harms way, telling him and all of us that he is risking his life to quell a threat to our national security, when it is not fucking true?</h4>
You do yourself, your countrymen, and all of our brave young Americans who wear, or contemplate wearing the uniform of a branch of the U.S. military a grave disservice. Your support for this has helped to diminish the collective resolve of all of us to volunteer to defend our country, as a civilian or as a member of our military. In the weeks after 9/11, President Bush and his government had the nearly universal support of Americans and of the western world. Bush and the officials he selected to administer the policies that they determined and declared to be the most timely and effective to keep America secure in a post 9/11 world, do not have much to show for their efforts in terms of successes, 44 months later.

44 months after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the U.S. found itself in August, 1945. Germany had been defeated by then, and two Japanese cities had been bombed by nuclear weapons that on Dec. 7, 1941, were only on the drawing boards, with no existing process to refine the fissionable material that made their unprecedented destructive force compact and cost effective enough to be delivered on an enemy from the air.

In comparison the policies that you support have resulted in dividing the nation, slowing recruitment of volunteers to fill our military's manpower requirements, turned the outpouring of foreign sympathy for America post attack, and the sentiment to ally with Bush's intially declared "war on terrorism", into distance and disdain, and a measurable decline of foreign trust of the word of our president, state department, or of our military leaders.

Our military commanders just this week describe our presence in Iraq as <a href="http://www.duluthsuperior.com/mld/duluthsuperior/11693778.htm">Iraq outlook bleak, U.S. generals say</a> , even as CIC Bush spins their pronouncements in his own misleading way. <a href="http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&ned=us&ie=UTF-8&q=bush+progress+iraq&btnG=Search+News">http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&ned=us&ie=UTF-8&q=bush+progress+iraq&btnG=Search+News</a>

I do not expect to change anyone's mind. If my efforts can strengthen the resolve of those who demand sincerity, disclosure, and accountability of our elected officials, as a minimum standard for those deserving of our vote and of our post election support, my participation here will be worth my while. Ustwo, I would not be impressed if Bush had received ninety percent of last November's vote. The damage he has done to the credibility of our government and to his administration is what it is, in the oipinion of some Americans, and in the opinion of many in other nations. Does the plurality of this poll result affect your opinion?:
A presentation that responds to "In war the ends always justify the means.":

huh--i seem to remember that, during the cold war, the folk who wore white hats characterized the folk who wore black hats--you know, stalin et al--as being evil because they approached politics using an "ends justify the means" rationality. at that time, this rationality was framed as a kind of "anything goes" element within a type of ideological fanaticism.

it is pretty funny to read precisely this type of argument being floated above to justify the end-run around all legal parameters that cowboy george and his administration engineered in order to invade iraq. but it seems to track other modes of drift in argument...

except that this memo--tip of an iceberg--was not written in the context of a war, but prior to, as a reflection on/about the process of constructing a (false) case *for* war.


unless what you mean by this argument, ustwo, to the extent that it is one, that war starts from the instant anyone thinks about war. in which case, the idea of war means nothing---it is a kind of psychological state, a formalised snippiness----only incidentally is war an actual event---for your argument to hold, war is a curiously nebulous thing the primary function of which is to legitimate any and all actions undertaken by an administration that you agree with politically--i expect that your definition of war would be very very different if, say, a democrat was in the white house. but that is the advantage of a nebulous idea--it is wholly instrumental from the outset, and in its use--the ends justify the means---right?

at this point, the right only has "saddam hussein was a bad man" to legitimate its actions. well that and the rove response, which is to pretend that questions about the legitimacy of the war were somehow "answered" in the last election--which assumes that this information about distorting information as a function of a decision to go to war based on nothing was already in the public sphere before novemebr--which of course it wasnt, not in this obvious and detailed a way. so two arguments really: the end justifies the means, and we already had this debate.

both these arguments are simply nuts.

what they point to is the amazing ability to avoid dissonant information that seems characteristic of conservative ideology--why face unpleasant facts when you can always just turn on fox news, which will not bother you with it?---this of course as an argument is at once not much different from the "war" argument above--for all the years of husseins rule that saw him a convenient tool of american foreign policy, he might have been a dickhead, but he was our dickhead and so nothing was said about him, about his actions--not even the infamous use of gas, which the reagan administration knew full well about and said nothing about because, at the time, the argument that it was directed against a military target was enough. after the invasion of kuwait, however he stopped being convenient and so became evil incarnate. hussein himself was a miserable, brutal piece character the entire time--what changed was the american relation to him.

is iraq better off without saddam hussein? probably. of course it is hard to know what is really going on in iraq still because the pooled press is still relaying defense department talking points in the main. there are arguments that iraq is sliding toward civil war. this would be a complete fiasco. but i am sure the right will "take the long view" on this.

but even if iraq were a rosy, lovely situation now (it obviously is not) would this in any way justify the extralegal activities of the bush administration? not in the slightest.
but maybe this is why the nebulous category "war" and the pseudo-argument attached to it above makes sense: it is nothing other than an empty slogan that enables a refusal to think about unpleasant information.

I just love how there can be piles of evidence - the known lie about Niger yellowcake in the State of the Union, the repeated claims by Bushco that Saddam was linked to Al Qaeda despite the fact that they couldn't even conjure up fake evidence to indicate that, a memo nobody is disputing to be true that has the head of British intelligence commenting on how the Bushies made up their mind to go to war in early 2002 and were fixing the intelligence around that decision - I mean, all of this utterly undeniable evidence, and still people say shit like, "I don't think they were lying. They just had bad intel and maybe fudged the facts a little."

How long can people simply ignore the existence of unrefutable evidence?

As soon as I see some I'll let you know.

Then I will *shrug* at you, and not care anyways.

I will then eat some high protein snacks, and play with my child.

If the White Sox are playing I might watch the game.

You see, while I don't see boogymen under ever rock, nor do I see your 'unrefutable evidence', the fact that you bring up the yellow cake argument is proof to me you use a different definition of 'unrefutable' than I do, I do see the mideast as being an area we need a strong foothold in, and I don't CARE why we did it, I am just glad we did do it.

USA 1 Evil 0.

Wow. That's complex, man. Deep. Good to see we're operating on half a level of analysis when it comes to issues of war.

If you want a thesis on why removing a dictator and replacing it with a democracy in the mid east is a good thing, there are plenty of them out there. This has been discussed NUMEROUS AND MULTIPLE TIMES on the board here. I see no need why I should repeat it.

Now relax and have some snacks. :thumbsup:

interesting that you confuse your sentiments about family and baseball with an argument about the war in iraq, ustwo.
how does this logic work?
you say that you prefer hanging out at home and thinking about that to developing informed positions about this matter--so for you whatever the present administration says to justify itself and its actions are just hunky dory--all of which are your choices, of course, and as such are nothing to argue about-----but if all that is true, then why post as if your position--that you like your child and baseball--amounts to anything like a considered, informed argument on the topic of the war in iraq?

Recent comments posted here remind me of the lyrics of a '60s folksong:
Phil Ochs also wrote this in the eraly days of US involvement in Vietnam:

Doesn't it get boring having to babysit?

Just curious.

Tedious is the correct word.

People know the rules but some seem unwilling or incapable of following them.

A followup news report from the U.K. newspaper that broke the "Downing Street memo" story.
If the report in the U.K. Sunday Times is true, and, consider that the British government has not refuted the initial May 1, "Memo" report, even on the eve of a key election for PM Tony Blair, indications are that the Bush and Blair administrations deliberately violated the terms of the 1991 cease fire with Iraq in a mutual, premeditated effort to provoke Iraq into a war. This seems similar to a conspiracy to launch a war of aggression via unjustified, provactive air attacks, coupled with an intent to manufacture reasons to launch an invasion (fixing the facts around the
policy).

And... a draft of a new letter to Rumsfeld from John Conyers, ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee:

John Conyers has also requested signatures from the public to add pressure to the administration to respond to congress. You can find this at johnconyers.com.

I wanted to bump this back to the forefront of discussion, mainly because I am amazed that it actually happened.

Here is a link to the actual memo:
http://downingstreetmemo.com/memo.html

I am not sure how this is still being swept under the rug of the media?

Politics, to me, is dead. When I was a child I loved the idea of the American government, now I am just a disillusioned adult who feels that there is no truth in any political system.

I personally was taken in by the lies before the war, and I am ashamed of it. Once it was proven that the justification for war that was sold to the UK and US public was a lie, I lost all respect for Bush. I retained some shred of respect for Blair, as I felt that his case for war was slightly different and he did not directly deceive the world...Today is a sad day for me, becuase I now have lost my respect for Blair as well.

What a bunch of lying, conniving bastards.

Why is the American public so apathetic? Do they feel that they cannot change anything or do they truly believe everything that the US government says??

Ustwo, do you still not feel that there is irrefutable evidence as to the deception involved with the Iraq war?

The US and UK governments do not deny that the things outlind in this memo transpired, nor will they discuss it.

http://downingstreetmemo.com/memo.html#validity

That's not what this says.

Link

Forgive me for saying it, but just because Blair counters a condemning piece of evidence does not mean it did not happen.

This is the same person who stood in front of us and stated "Iraq has WMD" and "Britain could be attacked within 45 minutes."

I don't see anywhere where he refutes the fact that the memo is correct, he simply says it was "taken out of context."