February 7, 2003 - VIPS: "consequences are likely to be catastrophic"

[understandinglife]

Does Anyone Making Decisions at "The NYTimes" Bother to Connect Dots?

The answer through the Spring, Summer, Fall and Winter of 2002, is not just no, but far worse.

The answer from January 2003 until now, remains NO and the consequences, irrespective of intent, have been catastrophic.

I review an item that appeared today at Huffington Post with two VIPS memoranda sent to Bush - one on February 7, 2003 and the other on March 18, 2003.

"We The People ..." didn't need Michael Smith to publish leaked Downing Street classified documents to have had ample access, prior to the start of Bush's illegal war on Iraq, to the deception being spewed, intentionally, by the Bush administration.

What "We The People ..." needed was a 4th Estate that was not a full-throated propaganda instrument of Bush and his neoconster buddies.

Does Anyone Making Decisions at "The NYTimes" Bother to Connect Dots?

Who did the editorial writers have in mind --assuming an awareness of Miller’s notorious reliance on anonymous INC sources (and neo-con officials in the administration) in reporting the existence of WMD in Iraq -- when writing “it is true that some journalists have abused and overused unnamed sources over the years”? Tellingly, the editorial argued that secret sources are a means for protecting a whistleblowing civil servant or employee of a private company, but did not add: or a top government official leaking the name of a secret CIA operative. Norman Pearlstine, editor in chief of Time Inc., recently said on Court TV: "A 90-second conversation with the President's spin doctor, who was trying to undermine a whistle-blower, probably didn't deserve confidential source status."

It is to turn the Plame case on its head to suggest that Miller, of all people, was gathering materials for a story that cast a critical light on the motives and actions of those officials who partook in a potential federal crime in leaking the identity of Plame. It is to make a mockery of the very idea of shielding whistleblowers from adverse consequences. Moreover, it is not possible to separate the extent to which Miller’s WMD reporting played a part in pushing the neo-con agenda in Iraq from the way in which her actions in the Plame affair are effectively protecting her neo-con sources. The Plame scandal is not a separate issue from her WMD reporting, but occurred as part of her WMD activism. Just whom, or what, is Miller protecting?

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Do the top editors of The New York Times have enough detachment to have an idea of how the kid-gloves treatment of Miller’s role in the Plame affair affects the paper’s place as part of the greater Fourth Estate? That is, we have the leading newspaper in the world engaged in a kind of petty coverup to protect one of its employees-–without a scrap of public evidence that the reporter was reporting, let alone interested in exposing government skullduggery. It is hard not to conclude that either this relates back to the “warhawk” stance of columnist-cum-editor Bill Keller (and others) on the invasion of Iraq; or it devolves into personal relationships, a kind of nepotism. In any case, the newspaper of record has been severely compromised.

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From What Price Judith Miller to The New York Times? by William E Jackson

Much more at the link:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/william-e-jackson-jr/what-price-judith-miller-_b_6202.html

Well, a slew of the dots the New York Times Editors and Reporters failed to connect are provided by this document published on February, 7 2003

The memorandum is essential reading in this "post-Downing Street Minutes" era.

It provides a perspective on why Judith Miller, the WHIGers (including Condi, Rove and Libby), Bolton, Gonzales, Feith, Perle, Rumsfeld, Powell, Cheney and Bush belligerently and stupidly outed a CIA covert agent -- not merely to slap Ambassador Wilson for telling the truth, but most likely to destroy a CIA WMD intelligence enterprise that might well have information on just how dishonest Powell, Rumsfeld, Cheney and Bush were being -- to the Congress, to the American people, and to their allies (something we know from DSM July 23, 2002, folk at 10 Downing St. were aware).

Published on Friday, February 7, 2003 by CommonDreams.org

MEMORANDUM FOR: The President

FROM: Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity

Secretary Powell's presentation at the UN today requires context. We give him an "A" for assembling and listing the charges against Iraq, but only a "C-" in providing context and perspective.

What seems clear to us is that you need an intelligence briefing, not grand jury testimony. Secretary Powell effectively showed that Iraq is guilty beyond reasonable doubt for not cooperating fully with UN Security Council Resolution 1441. That had already been demonstrated by the chief UN inspectors. For Powell, it was what the Pentagon calls a "cakewalk."

The narrow focus on Resolution 1441 has diverted attention from the wider picture. It is crucial that we not lose sight of that. Intelligence community analysts are finding it hard to make themselves heard above the drumbeat for war. Speaking both for ourselves, as veteran intelligence officers on the VIPS Steering Group with over a hundred years of professional experience, and for colleagues within the community who are increasingly distressed at the politicization of intelligence, we feel a responsibility to help you frame the issues. For they are far more far-reaching-and complicated-than "UN v. Saddam Hussein." And they need to be discussed dispassionately, in a setting in which sobriquets like "sinister nexus," "evil genius," and "web of lies" can be more hindrance than help.

Flouting UN Resolutions

The key question is whether Iraq's flouting of a UN resolution justifies war. This is the question the world is asking. Secretary Powell's presentation does not come close to answering it.

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Containment

You have dismissed containment as being irrelevant in a post 9/11 world. You should know that no one was particularly fond of containment, but that it has been effective for the last 55 years. And the concept of "material breach" is hardly anything new.

Material Breach

In the summer of 1983 we detected a huge early warning radar installation at Krasnoyarsk in Siberia. In 1984 President Reagan declared it an outright violation of the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty. At an ABM Treaty review in 1988, the US spoke of this continuing violation as a "material breach" of the treaty. In the fall of 1989, the Soviet Union agreed to eliminate the radar at Krasnoyarsk without preconditions.

We adduce this example simply to show that, with patient, persistent diplomacy, the worst situations can change over time.

You have said that Iraq is a "grave threat to the United States," and many Americans think you believe it to be an imminent threat. Otherwise why would you be sending hundreds of thousands of troops to the Gulf area? In your major speech in Cincinnati on October 7, 2002, you warned that "the risk is simply too great that Saddam Hussein will use instruments of mass death and destruction, or provide them to a terror network."

Terrorism

Your intelligence agencies see it differently. On the same day you spoke in Cincinnati, a letter from the CIA to the Senate Intelligence Committee asserted that the probability is low that Iraq would initiate an attack with such weapons or give them to terrorists..UNLESS:

"Should Saddam conclude that a US-led attack could no longer be deterred, he probably would become much less constrained in adopting terrorist actions."

For now, continued the CIA letter, "Baghdad appears to be drawing a line short of conducting terrorist attacks with conventional or chemical/biological warfare against the United States." With his back against the wall, however, "Saddam might decide that the extreme step of assisting Islamist terrorists in conducting a weapons-of-mass-destruction attack against the United States would be his last chance to exact vengeance by taking a large number of victims with him."

Your Pentagon advisers draw a connection between war with Iraq and terrorism, but for the wrong reasons. The connection takes on much more reality in a post-US invasion scenario.

Indeed, it is our view that an invasion of Iraq would ensure overflowing recruitment centers for terrorists into the indefinite future. Far from eliminating the threat it would enhance it exponentially.

As recent events around the world attest, terrorism is like malaria. You don't eliminate malaria by killing the flies. Rather you must drain the swamp. With an invasion of Iraq, the world can expect to be inundated with swamps breeding terrorists. In human terms, your daughters are unlikely to be able to travel abroad in future years without a large phalanx of security personnel.

We recommend you re-read the CIA assessment of last fall (that would be 2002) that pointed out that "the forces fueling hatred of the US and fueling al Qaeda recruiting are not being addressed," and that "the underlying causes that drive terrorists will persist." That CIA report cited a Gallup poll last year (i.e., 2002) of almost 10,000 Muslims in nine countries in which respondents described the United States as "ruthless, aggressive, conceited, arrogant, easily provoked and biased."

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Casualties

Reminder: The last time we sent troops to the Gulf, over 600,000 of them, one out of three came back ill - many with unexplained disorders of the nervous system. Your Secretary of Veterans Affairs recently closed the VA healthcare system to nearly 200,000 eligible veterans by administrative fiat. Thus, casualties of further war will inevitably displace other veterans who need VA services.

In his second inaugural, Abraham Lincoln appealed to his fellow citizens to care for those who "have borne the battle." Years before you took office, our country was doing a very poor job of that for the over 200,000 servicemen and women stricken with various Gulf War illnesses. Today's battlefield is likely to be even more sodden with chemicals and is altogether likely to yield tens of thousands more casualties. On October 1, 2002 Congress' General Accounting Office reported "serious problems still persist" with the Pentagon's efforts to protect servicemen and women, including shortfalls in clothing, equipment, and training. Our troops deserve more effective support than broadcasts, leaflets, and faulty equipment for protection against chemical and biological agents.

No one has a corner on the truth; nor do we harbor illusions that our analysis is irrefutable or undeniable. But after watching Secretary Powell today, we are convinced that you would be well served if you widened the discussion beyond violations of Resolution 1441, and beyond the circle of those advisers clearly bent on a war for which we see no compelling reason and from which we believe the unintended consequences are likely to be catastrophic.

/s/

Richard Beske, San Diego
Kathleen McGrath Christison, Santa Fe
William Christison, Santa Fe
Patrick Eddington, Alexandria
Raymond McGovern, Arlington

Steering Group
Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity

Link:

http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0207-04.htm

On March 18, 2003, the VIPS wrote another memorandum to Bush; more dots that the New York Times should have connected then, but still haven't connected, now.

March 18, 2003

MEMORANDUM FOR: The President

FROM: Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity

SUBJECT: Forgery, Hyperbole, Half-Truth: A Problem

We last wrote you immediately after Secretary of State Powell's UN speech on February 5, in an attempt to convey our concerns that insufficient attention was being given to wider intelligence-related issues at stake in the conflict with Iraq. Your speech yesterday evening did nothing to allay those concerns. And the acerbic exchanges of the past few weeks have left the United States more isolated than at any time in the history of the republic and the American people more polarized.

Today we write with an increased sense of urgency and responsibility. Responsibility, because you appear to be genuinely puzzled at the widespread opposition to your policy on Iraq and because we have become convinced that those of your advisers who do understand what is happening are reluctant to be up front with you about it. As veterans of the CIA and other intelligence agencies, the posture we find ourselves in is as familiar as it is challenging. We feel a continuing responsibility to "tell it like it is" - or at least as we see it - without fear or favor. Better to hear it from extended family than not at all; we hope you will take what follows in that vein.

We cannot escape the conclusion that you have been badly misinformed. It was reported yesterday that your generals in the Persian Gulf area have become increasingly concerned over sandstorms. To us this is a metaphor for the shifting sand-type "intelligence" upon which your policy has been built.

Worse still, it has become increasingly clear that the sharp drop in US credibility abroad is largely a function of the rather transparent abuse of intelligence reporting and the dubious conclusions drawn from that reporting - the ones that underpin your decisions on Iraq.

Flashback to Vietnam

Many of us cut our intelligence teeth during the sixties. We remember the arrogance and flawed thinking that sucked us into the quagmire of Vietnam. The French, it turned out, knew better. And they looked on with wonderment at Washington's misplaced confidence -its single-minded hubris, as it embarked on a venture the French knew from their own experience could only meet a dead end. This was hardly a secret. It was widely known that the French general sent off to survey the possibility of regaining Vietnam for France after World War II reported that the operation would take a half-million troops, and even then it could not be successful.

Nevertheless, President Johnson, heeding the ill-informed advice of civilian leaders of the Pentagon with no experience in war, let himself get drawn in past the point of no return. In the process, he played fast and loose with intelligence to get the Tonkin Gulf resolution through Congress so that he could prosecute the war. To that misguided war he mortgaged his political future, which was in shambles when he found himself unable to extricate himself from the morass.

Quite apart from what happened to President Johnson, the Vietnam War was the most serious US foreign policy blunder in modern times - until now.

Forgery

In your state-of-the-union address you spoke of Iraq's pre-1991 focus on how to "enrich uranium for a bomb" and added, "the British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa." No doubt you have now been told that this information was based on bogus correspondence between Iraq and Niger. Answering a question on this last week, Secretary Powell conceded-with neither apology nor apparent embarrassment-that the documents in question, which the US and UK had provided to the UN to show that Iraq is still pursuing nuclear weapons, were forgeries. Powell was short: "If that information is inaccurate, fine."

But it is anything but fine. This kind of episode inflicts serious damage on US credibility abroad-the more so, as it appears neither you nor your advisers and political supporters are in hot pursuit of those responsible. Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Pat Roberts has shown little enthusiasm for finding out what went awry. Committee Vice-Chairman, Jay Rockefeller, suggested that the FBI be enlisted to find the perpetrators of the forgeries, which US officials say contain "laughable and child-like errors," and to determine why the CIA did not recognize them as forgeries. But Roberts indicated through a committee spokeswoman that he believes it is " inappropriate for the FBI to investigate at this point." Foreign observers do not have to be paranoid to suspect some kind of cover-up.

Who Did It? Who Cares!

Last week Wisconsin Congressman Dave Obey cited a recent press report suggesting that a foreign government might be behind the forgeries as part of an effort to build support for military action against Iraq and asked Secretary Powell if he could identify that foreign government. Powell said he could not do so "with confidence." Nor did he appear in the slightest interested.

We think you should be. In the absence of hard evidence one looks for those with motive and capability. The fabrication of false documentation, particularly what purports to be official correspondence between the agencies of two governments, is a major undertaking requiring advanced technical skills normally available only in a sophisticated intelligence service. And yet the forgeries proved to be a sloppy piece of work.

Chalk it up to professional pride by (past) association, but unless the CIA's capabilities have drastically eroded over recent years, the legendary expertise of CIA technical specialists, combined with the crudeness of the forgeries, leave us persuaded that the CIA did not craft the bogus documents. Britain's MI-6 is equally adept at such things. Thus, except in the unlikely event that crafting forgery was left to second-stringers, it seems unlikely that the British were the original source.

We find ourselves wondering if amateur intelligence operatives in the Pentagon basement and/or at 10 Downing Street were involved and need to be called on the carpet. We would urge you strongly to determine the provenance. This is not trivial matter. As our VIPS colleague (and former CIA Chief of Station) Ray Close has noted, "If anyone in Washington deliberately practiced disinformation in this way against another element of our own government or wittingly passed fabricated information to the UN, this could do permanent damage to the commitment to competence and integrity on which the whole American foreign policy process depends."

The lack of any strong reaction from the White House feeds the suspicion that the US was somehow involved in, or at least condones, the forgery. It is important for you to know that, although credibility-destroying stories like this rarely find their way into the largely cowed US media, they do grab headlines abroad among those less disposed to give the US the benefit of the doubt. As you know better than anyone, a year and a half after 9/11 the still traumatized US public remains much more inclined toward unquestioning trust in the presidency. Over time that child-like trust can be expected to erode, if preventive maintenance is not performed and hyperbole shunned.

Hyperbole

The forgery aside, the administration's handling of the issue of whether Iraq is continuing to develop nuclear weapons has done particularly severe damage to US credibility. On October 7 your speechwriters had you claim that Iraq might be able to produce a nuclear weapon in less than a year. Formal US intelligence estimates, sanitized versions of which have been made public, hold that Iraq will be unable to produce a nuclear weapon until the end of the decade, if then. In that same speech you claimed that "the evidence indicates that Iraq is reconstituting its nuclear weapons program"-a claim reiterated by Vice President Cheney on Meet the Press on March 16.

Reporting to the UN Security Council in recent months, UN chief nuclear inspector Mohammed ElBaradei has asserted that the inspectors have found no evidence that Iraq has reconstituted its nuclear weapons program. Some suspect that the US does have such evidence but has not shared it with the UN because Washington has been determined to avoid doing anything that could help the inspections process succeed. Others believe the "evidence" to be of a piece with the forgery - in all likelihood crafted by Richard Perle's Pentagon Plumbers. Either way, the US takes a large black eye in public opinion abroad.

Then there are those controversial aluminum tubes which you have cited in major speeches as evidence of a continuing effort on Iraq's part to produce nuclear weapons. Aside from one analyst in the CIA and the people reporting to Defense Secretary Rumsfeld, there is virtually unanimous agreement within the intelligence, engineering, and scientific communities with ElBaradei's finding that "it was highly unlikely" that the tubes could have been used to produce nuclear material. It is not enough for Vice President Cheney to dismiss ElBaradei's findings. Those who have followed these issues closely are left wondering why, if the vice president has evidence to support his own view, he does not share it with the UN.

Intelligence Scant

In your speech yesterday evening you stressed that intelligence "leaves no doubt that the Iraqi regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised." And yet even the Washington Post, whose editors have given unswerving support to your policy on Iraq, is awash with reports that congressional leaders, for example, have been given no specific intelligence on the number of banned weapons in Iraq or where they are hidden. One official, who is regularly briefed by the CIA, commented recently that such evidence as does exist is "only circumstantial." Another said he questioned whether the administration is shaping intelligence for political purposes. And, in a moment of unusual candor, one senior intelligence analyst suggested that one reason why UN inspectors have had such trouble finding weapons caches is that "there may not be much of a stockpile."

Having backed off suggestions early last year that Iraq may already have nuclear weapons, your administration continues to assert that Iraq has significant quantities of other weapons of mass destruction. But by all indications, this is belief, not proven fact. This has led the likes of Thomas Powers, a very knowledgeable author on intelligence, to conclude that "the plain fact is that the Central Intelligence Agency doesn't know what Mr. Hussein has, if anything, or even who knows the answers, if anyone."

This does not inspire confidence. What is needed is candor-candor of the kind you used in one portion of your speech on October 7. Just two paragraphs before you claimed that Iraq is "reconstituting" its nuclear weapons program, you said, "Many people have asked how close Saddam Hussein is to developing a nuclear weapon. Well, we don't know exactly, and that's the problem."

True, candor can weaken a case that one is trying to build. We are reminded of a remarkable sentence that leapt out of FBI Director Mueller's testimony to the Senate Intelligence Committee on February 11 - a sentence that does actually parse, but nonetheless leaves one scratching one's head. Mueller: "The greatest threat is from al-Qaeda cells in the US that we have not yet identified."

This seems to be the tack that CIA Director Tenet is taking behind closed doors; i.e., the greatest threat from Iraq is the weapons we have not yet identified but believe are there.

[]bIt is not possible to end this section on hyperbole without giving Oscars to Secretaries Rumsfeld and Powell, who have outdone themselves in their zeal to establish a connection between Iraq and al-Qaeda. You will recall that Rumsfeld described the evidence-widely recognized to be dubious-as " bulletproof," and Powell characterized the relationship as a "partnership!" Your assertion last evening that "the terrorist threat to America and the world will be diminished the moment that Saddam Hussein is disarmed" falls into the same category. We believe it far more likely that our country is in for long periods of red and orange color codes.

Half-Truth

Here we shall limit ourselves to one example, although the number that could be adduced is legion.

You may recall that a Cambridge University analyst recently revealed that a major portion of a British intelligence document on Iraq had been plagiarized from a term paper by a graduate student in California — information described by Secretary Powell to the UN Security Council as “exquisite” intelligence. That same analyst has now acquired from the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) the transcript of the debriefing of Iraqi Gen. Hussein Kamel, son-in-law of Saddam Hussein, who defected in 1995.

Kamel for ten years ran Iraq’s nuclear, chemical, biological, and missile development programs, and some of the information he provided has been highly touted by senior US policymakers, from the president on down. But the transcript reveals that Kamel also said that in 1991 Iraq destroyed all its chemical and biological weapons and the missiles to deliver them. This part of the debriefing was suppressed until Newsweek ran a story on it on February 24, 2003.

We do not for a minute take all of what Kamel said at face value. Rather we believe the Iraqis retain some chemical and biological warfare capability. What this episode suggests, though, is a preference on the part of US officials to release only that information that supports the case they wish to make against Iraq.

In Sum

What conclusions can be drawn from the above? Simply that forgery, hyperbole, and half-truths provide a sandy foundation from which to launch a major war.

Equally important, there is danger in the temptation to let the conflict with Iraq determine our attitude toward the entire gamut of foreign threats with which you and your principal advisers need to be concerned. Threats to US security interests must be prioritized and judged on their own terms. In our judgment as intelligence professionals, there are two are real and present dangers today.

1-- The upsurge in terrorism in the US and against American facilities and personnel abroad that we believe would inevitably flow from a US invasion of Iraq. Concern over this is particularly well expressed in the February 26 letter from FBI Special Agent Coleen Rowley to Director Mueller, a letter well worth your study.

2-- North Korea poses a particular danger, although what form this might take is hard to predict. Pyongyang sees itself as the next target of your policy of preemption and, as its recent actions demonstrate, will take advantage of US pre-occupation with Iraq both to strengthen its defenses and to test US and South Korean responses. Although North Korea is economically weak, its armed forces are huge, well armed, and capable. It is entirely possible that the North will decide to mount a provocation to test the tripwire provided by the presence of US forces in South Korea. Given the closeness of Seoul to the border with the North and the reality that North Korean conventional forces far outnumber those of the South, a North Korean adventure could easily force you to face an abrupt, unwelcome decision regarding the use of nuclear weapons—a choice that your predecessors took great pains to avoid.

We suggest strongly that you order the Intelligence Community to undertake, on an expedited basis, a Special National Intelligence Estimate on North Korea, and that you defer any military action against Iraq until you have had a chance to give appropriate weight to the implications of the challenge the US might face on the Korean peninsula.

/s/

Richard Beske, San Diego
Kathleen McGrath Christison, Santa Fe
William Christison, Santa Fe
Patrick Eddington, Alexandria, VA
Raymond McGovern, Arlington, VA

Steering Group
Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity

Link:

http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0319-08.htm

That was sent to Bush on MARCH 18, 2003

In conclusion, the VIPS memorandum of February 8, 2003 concluded with the prescient and cogent recommendation to Bush that he " ... widen the discussion beyond violations of Resolution 1441, and beyond the circle of those advisers clearly bent on a war for which we see no compelling reason and from which we believe the unintended consequences are likely to be catastrophic.

He didn't take the advice and now he must be held accountable because:

The Iraqi people are living those 'unintended catastrophic consequences,' every minute of every day.

America is perceived as a rogue super-power, a state that sponsors torture, and has expanded the ranks of those who hate us, not for our freedoms but because of our obvious crimes -- further 'unintended catastrophic consequences.'

A mother had to stand in a ditch to bring broad attention, finally, to the costs in lives, shattered and over, that Bush and the neoconsters have needlessly subjected our honorable and brave Armed Forces -- catastrophic consequences, in_deed.

The New York Times still will not print the banner it should have printed on March 18, 2003 and certainly no later than on the day Ambassador Wilson published his report on Niger -- "AMERICA: YOU HAVE BEEN DECEIVED. STOP THE WAR"

So, Bush, the neoconsters and the New York Times must be held accountable. For the New York Times I recommend one final and honorable act -- print the banner -- "AMERICA: WE HAVE ENABLED BUSH TO DECEIVE YOU, WE APOLOGIZE & WE DEMAND BUSH RESIGN"

And that should be the last 'ink' the New York Times ever uses.


Peace.

[Dhalgren]

1. This has got to get out to the media and to the people!

Bush was warned, flat-out, of all the subsequent failures, catastrophes, stumbles and miscues and he ignored them. He was told exactly what was going to happen, by people that he should have known knew their stuff! He has to be held accountable and this must be brought out to everyones attention!

Recommended! Thanks for posting...

[understandinglife]

3. You are correct. That is why I assembled this the way I did so that ..

... folk could simply send one URL of this compilation, thereby making at easy as possible for many, many people to hit all the corporate media as well as spread it to their respective mail lists.

We had fine, patriotic intelligence experts making it clear to the President, publicly, that what he was saying, what Cheney was saying, what Powell was saying, what Rumsfeld was saying happened to be incorrect -- all before March 19, 2003.

The simple act of just holding Bush, Cheney et al accountable before the facts should lead to demands for their immediate resignation.

We do not need to invoke the crime of launching a war of aggression, the many crimes of torture, the many crimes of illegal occupation, death and destruction.

We simply need to invoke the reality that the facts were available before March 19, 2003 and they decided to ignore them.


Peace.

[understandinglife]

4. Conason: "Hundreds of billions of dollars and thousands of lives later ...

...

Here’s an outstanding example of what conservatives like to call the law of unintended consequences, an axiom they often cite to mock liberal initiatives. In this case, the neoconservatives promised that military action would implant secular democracy, install a government friendly to the United States and Israel, and stabilize a region critical to Western economic security. All of this would be accomplished without spending an American dime — or so they claimed — because Iraqi oil would finance the entire project.

Hundreds of billions of dollars and thousands of lives later, what we seem likelier to get in Baghdad sometime soon is an Islamist government, tied to the theocratic regime in Iran, divided by ethnicity, religion and province, and embroiled in a burgeoning civil war that could embroil Iraq’s neighbors and sink the region into turmoil.

To demand that the President face these facts and speak honestly about the situation in Iraq is to be accused of wanting to “cut and run,” ..... Mr. Bush has nothing new to say, which is why he has resorted to the ancient tactic of waving the bloody shirt.

The most recent public-opinion polls indicate that the American people no longer put much confidence in him — and are waiting for a politician to speak sanely about extricating our forces with the least additional damage to us and the Iraqis.

From The President Speaks, But He Says Nothing by Joe Conason on August 25, 2005

More at the link:

http://observer.com/politics_joeconason.asp

We know what we need to do:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=4411738

And, Cindy Sheehan has explained why - we must end Bush and the neoconsters' "strategy of eternal baseless war for corporate profit and greed":

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=4425185


Peace.

[understandinglife]

12. Hayden: "these policies will foment more violent hatred of the US."

The US opposes independent nationalism from Iraq to Venezuela. It prefers to weaken independent states to diminish their military potential in either the Middle East or Latin America, and to break down what are described as "protectionist" barriers to the "free trade" model of Halliburton or Walmart.

In seeking to impose both Pentagon dominance and a neo-liberal economic model on the world, the US is prepared to accept alliances with religious forces that insist on strict censorship and punishment of freedom of association and belief. For Bush and the neo-conservatives, it seems, freedom for American investors can't wait, but women - their rights "are not critical to the evolution of democracy."

Far from achieving stability and security, these policies will foment more violent hatred of the US. Far from planting democracy, US policy is squelching what little democracy there is, threatening to dismember Iraq, causing a civil war that will be the pretext for US troops to remain, and re-arranging the Middle East to include a de facto Shiite alliance from Teheran to Basra. That's why Bush can find no "noble purpose". It is about a war for dominance, not democracy.

From This Just In: the Real U.S. Iraq Agenda by Tom Hayden on August 25, 2005

More at the link:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tom-hayden/this-just-in-the-real-u_b_6221.html

When I asked the question "So, what would happen if Bush met with Cindy Sheehan and told the truth?"

(http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=4378946)

It would have taken Bush less than 10 sec to say "It is about a war for dominance, not democracy."

Now all Bush has to do is walk up to Cindy and read it -- it is a simple sentence so he should be able to get through it in less than 10 secs, maybe.

The other message in the OP is that "We The People ... Have No Clothes" and that reality was recently discussed here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=4385436

We have zero excuses. The truth is fully available to all of us.

The issue remains what are we going to do about it.

Cindy Sheehan has irrefutably demonstrated what can be done.

Spread the truth.


Peace.

[understandinglife]

17. Larry Johnson: "Rosy scenario does not live in Iraq."

Staying the course and enduring further casualties while the insurgency grows stronger is an insane policy. If we persist on that front we will end up strengthening the hand of Islamic extremists and their role within the Iraqi insurgency.

Our choice is simple — either we invest in the military resources and personnel required to defeat the Sunni insurgents and allow the Shia and Kurds to consolidate power or we withdraw and let the Shia, Sunni, and Kurds find their own solution. We cannot ask our soldiers and Marines to give their lives and sacrifice their bodies for a new Islamic state. It is true that our withdrawal will create a major vacuum and damage our prestige. But the alternative, i.e., that we stay and try to train up sufficient Iraqi forces and help the fledgling Islamic Government get on its feet, will leave us the favorite target of insurgents and terrorists. And after we have shed the blood of our sons and daughters in trying to create a new government that will be controlled by Islamists, those Islamists will ultimately insist that we leave Iraq and no longer meddle in their affairs.

Rosy scenario does not live in Iraq. Until we come to grips with this truth American soldiers will continue to be killed and maimed for no good reason.

From WHY WE MUST LEAVE IRAQ by Larry C. Johnson on August 24, 2005

More at the link:

http://noquarter.typepad.com/my_weblog/2005/08/why_we_must_lea.html

Only Bush and his neoconster fanatic fellow war criminals and those they still can brain-wash are unwilling to yield to the truth.

They can all claim an 'insanity defense' and perhaps escape the consequences of their actions -- but only if We The People .... do a much better job than they have of defending the Constitution of the United States of America (and flushing the Patriot Act, asap).


Peace.

[understandinglife]

28. August 26, 2005 - "Iraq on brink of meltdown"

Iraq on brink of meltdown

by Oliver Poole in Baghdad

The credibility of Iraq's political process was in danger last night as parliament again failed to vote on a draft constitution which a Sunni politician said was "fit only for the bin". The government had earlier announced plans to bypass parliament in an attempt to push through the document.



Supporters of Moqtada al-Sadr at a demonstration

But as the final hours ran out before the deadline for approving the constitution, Hajim al-Hassani, the speaker of the parliament, appeared to overrule the country's leaders by insisting that negotiations would continue today, meaning that the deadline would be missed for the third time.

The impression of growing crisis in Iraq was reinforced when a new front erupted in the violent rebellion, with Shia Muslims fighting each other with guns and rocket-propelled grenades.

<clip>

The drafting began amid the optimism engendered by January's successful elections, when Iraqis turned out to vote in defiance of bombers and gunmen. But US hopes of establishing the first secular democracy in the Arab world have foundered on ethnic and religious divisions.

<clip>

Link:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/08/26/wirq26.xml&sSheet=/portal/2005/08/26/ixportaltop.html

My fellow Americans, the VIPS memos are dated February 7, 2003 and March 18, 2003.

When Bush declared Mission Accomplished and "bring it on" -- he lied and then he asked for something no responsible Commander-in-Chief or military leader would ever request from an enemy.

We now have ample evidence of not just the ongoing deception, but of the failed and negligent performance of an executive and his management team.

Any American wanting to wait for the vote in 2006, should get their butt on an airplane to Iraq and take the place of one of the soldiers.

What every American should be doing is demanding the immediate resignation of Bush and his entire executive team. NOW.

What we then do to them, before the law, is a separate matter from the fact that they work for us and they have failed, catastrophically.


Peace.

[understandinglife]

39. August 26, 2005: Iraq Wasn't a Test of Democracy. It Was a Test of War

As Iraq's constitutional process breaks down, the blame for whatever follows will fall on America's head. This "test of democracy" in the Middle East no doubt is bound to fail, given that Iraq-watchers long before the U.S. invasion warned that the Sunni, Shiite, and Kurdish factions were not a nation-state but a confederation held together by terror and armed might under Saddam. I imagine we will see a flood of posts condemning the Bush administration for its folly, manipulation, self-deception, and ideological blindness, as it well deserves.

I'd only like to raise a deeper question. When is America going to take peace seriously? I aim this question not at the war-mongering baddies but at the good people who never wanted this war and feel more justified every day.

<clip>

Iraq was in reality a test of war, and it passed. More war is in the offing, and by passively allowing this conflict to happen, the good people helped pave the way for our next invasion or intervention. Passivity, not blood-thirstiness, is going to lead us into a hugely militarized future. America's addiction to war has just received another fix. The Bush administration and its cohorts don't care if this war is won or lost. Either outcome will reinforce the ethos of war and cut off any alternative.

Kerry and the Democratic National Committee knew that his only strategic option was to vote for the Iraqi war originally, because no anti-war candidate has a chance in a general election. That act of self-contradiction didn't win Kerry the Presidency, however, even against one of the weakest opponents imaginable. I think we should realize that liberals and moderates are in a lose-lose situation. Stop passively assenting to the U.S. as a war power and stand up for your belief in peace. You might be surprised, as I have been for the past five years how many people will stand up with you. To those who believe we can create a critical mass of peace consciousness, I recommend they visit www.www.anhglobal.org (Alliance for the New Humanity).

From Iraq Wasn't a Test of Democracy. It Was a Test of War by
Deepak Chopra on August 26, 2005

Link:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/deepak-chopra/iraq-wasnt-a-test-of-dem_b_6283.html

When is America going to take peace seriously?

The answer better be - NOW.


Peace.

[understandinglife]

42. In a new thread I've explored the 44 years between Eisenhower's last ...

... speech as President and Chopra's current essay.

A way exists to enable the corporatists to move from a war economy to a peace economy and not only maintain their margins but reduce their exposure to 'unintended (but increasingly certain) catastrophes.

Driving a wedge between the corporatists and the neoconsters is pragmatic and likely the only way to halt the neoconsters unimaginative use of perpetual war to expand the wealth of the haves and have mores.

The wedge has to be what the corporatists ultimately focus -- profit margin. The plan I'm suggesting both reduces their cost of doing business and maintains or grows their product sales by shifting to more sustainable market sectors.

Link:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x4469580


Peace.

[Totally Committed]

15. Kick

:kick:

[EVDebs]

13. Media ? CNN's "Dead Wrong" blames intelligence failure not politicians

This is further evidence of Operation Mockingbird. The CNN and PsyOps article by counterpunch's Alexander Cockburn in 2000 shows that domestic abuse of PsyOps by the military is an ongoing problem, too.

Carl Bernstein wrote the excellent The CIA and The Media article in Oct. 1977 for the Rolling Stone magazine. It has never been updated and the M$M needs to show some self-policing.

Our politicians have let us down; our intelligence agencies cannot do their jobs correctly unless they have whistleblowers (like Ellsberg, and now Wilson/Rowley/Singh etc. out there crying in the wilderness !

Bush may not want to go down in history as 'worst President, ever', but he's well on his way.

[seemslikeadream]

2. Thanks so much

http://www.cursor.org.nyud.net:8090/images/iheartchalabi.jpg

[Nothing Without Hope]

5. And now Bolton, who visited Miller in jail and has been one of the

prime movers in the Iraq and Iran lie machine, is single-handedly tearing up the UN:

I was looking through the NY Times article on this - Bolton rejected language supporting the Kyoto Protocol on global warming, disarmament as opposed to nuclear nonproliferation, many other things. Sickening. Of course, he WANTS to destroy the effectiveness of the UN, we've known that all along and so have the neocons - that's one of the reasons (all of them sinister) why they want him.

We must not allow this unconfirmed, vicious, bugnuts hack to seize and immediately abuse this broad international power to destroy the UN's effectiveness. We MUST fight Bolton's destruction of all worthwhile activities at the UN!

Here's the NYT article:

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/25/international/25nations.html

Bolton Pushes U.N. on Change as U.S. Objects to Draft Plan

By WARREN HOGE
Published: August 25, 2005

UNITED NATIONS, Aug. 24 -

(snip)

The new American approach recommends scrapping more than 400 passages in the 38-page draft prepared under the General Assembly president, Jean Ping of Gabon, that was being readied for a summit conference next month after nearly a year of intensive negotiations.

(snip)

Among the changes under consideration are the substitution of the Human Rights Commission with a more powerful Human Rights Council that would no longer allow rights violators onto the panel; the creation of a Peacebuilding Commission to help countries emerging from conflict; the defining of terrorism to exclude its justification as a national resistance or liberation tool; and the empowerment of the international community to intervene in countries that fail to protect their people from genocide and ethnic cleansing.

(snip)

Among them are the International Criminal Court, which the United States says could hear frivolous actions against Americans abroad; the Kyoto Protocol on global warming; the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty; and a pledge to devote 0.7 percent of gross national product to development.

The United States also objects to the document's stress on disarmament rather than nonproliferation and says it lacks clarity in assigning responsibility to a management oversight committee and fails to make clear the needs for developing nations to provide better governance so that aid can be properly directed to the needy.

(snip)

Recommended. Thanks for putting this together, UL.

By the way, I'm betting that -given his history, vicious personality, and likely involvement in criminal activities related to the Plame and Franklin scandals - Bolton visited Judy Miller in jail to remind her of the dire consequences if she should dare speak of what she knows about sources within the Bush Administration lying to push for the Iran War (and now an attack on Iran). He's hardly the type to bring flowers - he likes to bully and threaten, and I'm betting that's just what he was doing. He wouldn't have to say something dangerous - like "we'll make sure you never work again" or "we'll see to it that you have an accident" - for her to get the message loud and clear. After all, she was one of the tools in the lie campaign before the war and she knew what she was doing. If she were put on the witness stand and spoke freely about what she knows, big names - I'm betting including Bolton's own - would be implicated.

[understandinglife]

7. Yes, he is doing everything that we anticipated. Here are links to ...

...the WaPo article and to the the changes he is trying to force on the international community:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/24/AR2005082402321_pf.html

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2005/08/25/click-here-to-read-john-b_n_6210.html

Thank you.


Peace.

[understandinglife]

37. "I hear the air just squealing out of the bubble of American pretensions."

"America in the past has generally demonstrated capacity to be a great leader of others -- a planning nation, a strategic nation, a complex systems integrator in war and peace -- but now the obsession with doing things alone is a rejection of leadership and guarantees future weakness."

So states Steve Clemons (of The Washington Note) in a TPM guest blog introduction of Anne Penketh article in The Independent entitled With Bush's man installed, is this the end of diplomacy? on August 26, 2005.

That article contains the following observations:

An American, Franklin D Roosevelt, coined the phrase "United Nations" three years before the representatives of 50 countries met in San Francisco to found the UN in 1945. Ironically, an American, John Bolton, has just dealt a powerful blow to an organisation whose 191 members aimed to mark the UN's 60th birthday by agreeing a blueprint for UN reform.

The UN was born out of the ashes of the Second World War, inaugurating a new era of international optimism and co-operation as the economic underpinnings of the Bretton Woods system, responsible for the birth of institutions such as the World Bank, were put in place.

US support was key to the process ... How things have changed. With the arrival of the hawkish Mr Bolton to do the bidding of George Bush at the UN, relations between the US and the UN have never looked so bad.

<clip>

In the council, if the other delegates do not like what the Americans want, the US no longer hesitates to act without UN blessing.

Link:

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article308270.ece

And the link to Steve Clemons comments:

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2005_08_21.php#006348

More warnings.


Peace.

[Nothing Without Hope]

38. kick - the neocons plans for empire, with Iran as the next step, MUST be

stopped.

Some causes for concern:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x2037110
Thread title: All the pieces are on the board, folks....time to get worried.

We must be alert and not allow them to trick the US into another, even more devastating war.

[DemReadingDU]

6. Thank you for putting these articles together

so much information is out there, Bush and his administration should have never been in office. Most people, even the media, have never taken the time to become informed.

[hiley]

8. Execellent! Sending out immediately!

Thank you UL, this is just what is needed...:yourock:

[Time for change]

9. This is astonishing

It just keeps getting worse and worse.

[BamaBecky]

10. UL...the NYTimes is hamstrung by the CIA, the cabal or both

They are not allowed to tell the people the truth. Find out who Robert Gaylon Ross is and read his books. It's worse than you think.
click here to go to his website
Bama

[Totally Committed]

11. I am sitting here stunned, and chilled to the bone.

What an outstanding post! We all knew the bits and the pieces, but to see it presented this way... it's all right there before our eyes. We were deceived, and not about something small -- We were deceived about the information and intelligence that allowed this administration to lead this country to war.

I am so angry, so disgusted, so stunned. The NYT will never, of course, do the right thing as suggested in the OP. It's just not going to happen. But, what can we as readers... consumers... do to bring this point home to them? I just don't know if it even matters to corporations as large as this. They answer to no one.

Thank you, understandinglife, for this amazing post. I am saving it to a file, but I am at a loss as to how we (any of us) can use this. We can blog, write LTTE's, call until we are blue in the face. I feel they will continue to ignore, diflect, and redirect.

This country is making even me feel hopeless these days!

I will have to go think about this for a while.

TC

[hiley]

14. Kick

some audio links too.


Arundhati Roy: “Instant-Mix Imperial Democracy, Buy One Get One Free”:

I speak as a subject of the American Empire? I speak as a slave who
presumes to criticize her king.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article3441.htm

Noam Chomsky: Audio Lecture:

Propaganda and War: Iraq and Beyond
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article9274.htm
Howard Zinn: Video Lecture: The Myth of American Exceptionalism:

Today, says Zinn, we have a president, who more than any before him,
claims a special relationship with God. Zinn worries about an
administration that deploys Christian zealotry to justify a war against terrorism
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article8632.htm

[Independent_Liberal]

16. Kick!

[autorank]

18. Understandingiraq...This is the BEST information/analysis on Iraq.

What a wonderful set of insights into the collusion and calumny that is our Iraq policy. The Times should have connected the dots. They don't care because they don't have to care. The courage of these former intelligence officers is stunning. They know what can happen when you leave the reservation and take a stand. How awful they must have felt as they saw every single warning discarded, only to come true as events evolved. Prescient isn't an adequate word to describe these memos. They are intelligent, elegant, and, above all patriotic.

There will be an accounting for all of this. Quite frankly, I don't know how The Times will survive. I don't think anyone associated with the policy, once we're in full receipt of the consequences, can ever show their face. This is so damning that I'd wager the "world champion survivor of everything awful," Colin Powell, takes a dive.

The Times should stop publishing. They promoted a war, traded on their reputation provided by several million loyal readers, most of whom are liberal/progressive, and betrayed the country. Judith Miller may or may not deserve to be in jail for refusing to testify. No doubt, she does deserve to be in jail for her crimes in promoting this tragic war.

It seems that modern great nations reach a point where their last major war is their last true adventure: Japan, done; France, done; Germany, done. They've all given up foreign advent ur, although France plays at it with the Legion and some sleuths. They've all done much better since doing so.

The USA and Great Britain were lied into this war. Nevertheless, it took tragic events to wake us up here and the British are sleep walking again.

This will be our last adventure in total stupidity. The Truth Is All we need now and this is a great first step.

I can see a day, soon, when going to war is contingent on the active, largely independent approval of the officer corps. Blessed are the peace makers!

Thanks Understandinglife. Outstanding & PEACE

:kick::kick::kick::kick::kick::kick:
:kick::kick::kick::kick::kick::kick:

[understandinglife]

20. "The Truth Is All we need now and this is a great first step."

Excellent insights my friend. Thank you for taking the effort to assemble them and share them with us in this thread.

I consider these sentences of yours an outstanding tribute to those truly patriotic Americans who comprise the VIPS:

The courage of these former intelligence officers is stunning. They know what can happen when you leave the reservation and take a stand. How awful they must have felt as they saw every single warning discarded, only to come true as events evolves. Prescient isn't an adequate word to describe these memos. They are intelligent, elegant, and, above all patriotic.

I sent a link to this threat to Ray McGovern and Larry Johnson -- I hope they see your comments and share them with their colleagues.

They need to know how much respect their actions have earned.


Peace.

[autorank]

21. Thank you for taking the time and exercising the skill to put this in ...

front of us. It's an awakening to me. I had no idea how well counseled the Administration was and how available the analysis was for The Times and other media. It's one thing to make a mistake based on good intentions but poor research; it's another to do so with all the information necessary to prevent the tragedy.

Peace Is All!!! That's the Truth!!!

I will share this widely. These are real American heroes. It gives me real hope for the country!

[understandinglife]

19. "Managing his anxiety is one reason presidential briefings have been so ..

... SIMPLE. USA Today reports on August 25 that Bush’s foreign policy briefings were, until very recently, presented to him with “snappy headlines” and simplistic perspectives leaving “little room for doubt or nuance.” No wonder it was so simple to invade Iraq.

Bush himself said that he doesn't do nuance. The truth is, he can't. Evading anxiety over all these years – whether with alcohol, religion, or exercise – has compromised his ability to think. Instead, Bush relies on daily routines. His bicycling routine is rigidly adhered to; but thinking — and a mechanism to facilitate it — are nonexistent.

The Financial Times of London had a headline on August 25 saying that the “US Army looks to leave Iraq” despite Bush himself saying things to the contrary. His rigidity of thought is not motivated by stubbornness, or by a fear of being wrong. It is safer for Bush to hold onto an idea that has served him in the past than to try a new one that might not work. His need for consistency leads to swift and vigorous responses to any threats that may challenge it.

Unfortunately for Bush, already in retreat in Crawford, the challenge posed by Cindy Sheehan has been too much - it pushed him to run to Idaho. He cannot bomb her, but he can unleash his minions – from Drudge to the American Legion – to attack. The Livestrong motto which made Lance Armstrong an American hero means something different to Bush – Livestrong to protect against being overwhelmed by fear and anxiety.

From Pedaling as Fast as He Can by Justin Frank on August 25, 2005

More important insights at the link:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/justin-frank/pedaling-as-fast-as-he-ca_b_6246.html

Any question if this sick man would attempt to destroy an American Ambassador who happened to tell the truth should be obviously not worth the energy to ask.

Any question if this sick man could care less about destroying an intelligence infrastructure because it could readily disrupt his fantastical 'beliefs' should be answered with minimal effort.

Bush is a brittle sociopath, but I am convinced he is fully cognizant of all that he does and why he does it.

He is not a puppet; he has been pulling everyone's strings, and until Cindy Sheehan came along and started slashing the strings and demanding face time, he prevailed.

For those of you elected representatives whom work inside the beltway, and live on a cushy salary provided by those of us Americans who actually pay taxes, the least you could do is defend the Constitution from all enemies, foreign and DOMESTIC. In other words, either resign or at least do as much as Cindy Sheehan is doing to save our America from the gravest threat it has ever faced -- W and his gang of neoconster war criminals.


Peace.

[Beam Me Up]

22. WOW

I'm way too exhausted from a long day at work to even begin to reply to this amazing post in the way that it deserves.

I will say that what I get from what is being said is that WE, THE AMERICAN PEOPLE, HAVE THE POWER TO OUST BUSH AND HIS NEOCONS IF WE HAVE THE WILL TO DO IT. What I get from reading the OP and those that follow is that we are on the cusp of a New America -- IF WE WANT IT BADLLY ENOUGH TO MAKE IT HAPPEN.

This is not a threat. It is a revelation. We are finally at a place where we can begin to at long last get beyond the tired rhetoric of right vs. left and liberal vs. conservative and even Democrat vs. Republican. The American people can become united in opposition to the tyranny of corporate fascism. That is who Bush represents, not the American people. He is using our military to protect THEM and THEIR interests, not those of the American people. We must identify every corporation that has been directly involved in putting Bush in power and keeping him there and then we must begin to bring upon them every legal and economic pressure we, as a people, can muster. We -- everyone reading this -- must expose them for what they are -- a direct threat to our national security -- and bring against them in defense of our nation every applicable law.

We CAN do this, if we have the will and persistence to do it.

Yet once again I quote Mario Savio:

"There is a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you can't take part; you can't even passively take part, and you've got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus, and you've got to make it stop. And you've got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it, that unless you're free, the machine will be prevented from working at all!"

If you haven't seen the documentary Berkeley in the Sixties, I highly recommend that you do . In it you will see the students of the University of California at Berkley peacefully take over the Universitie's administrative offices in Sproul Hall to a point where the chancellor had to declare via bull horn that "the functioning of the University has be materially impaired." The students, at first stunned by the significance of this news, then burst into a rousing round of applause -- much to the chagrin of the Chancelor.

But the unity that made that event possible didn't arise spontaneously out of thin air. It was an event within a specific historical context and a specific time. Nevertheless, it was something profound not only in its own right, but also in what it symbolized was, and still is, possible.

As brave citizens post something here and we, in turn, copy it and distribute it to others who in turn copy it and so on -- we begin the formation of what it will take for us to claim the New America that is rightfully ours. There is NOTHING a fascist regime fears MORE than an INFORMED Citizenry -- one that fully understand its rights under the law.

During the bloody 'massacre' of demonstrators outside the Democratic National Convention in Chcago, 1968, the crowd of thousands chanted to the police as the cameras rolled on: THE WHOLE WORLD IS WATCHING, THE WHOLE WORLD IS WATCHING, THE WHOLE WORLD IS WATCHING. They were beaten to a bloody pulp, but the event WAS seen by the nation AND the world.

Now that situation is not likely to happen the same way again. The corporate media has shown where its sympathies lies, and it is NOT with the American people. If you have watched the video linked from THIS DU THREAD, you will begin to understand the significance of this even more.

If we're going to TRULY win the war on terrorism, we must DRAIN THE SWAMP.

But this time, the whole world is not merely watching, THEY ARE WITH US.

[understandinglife]

23. "the whole world is not merely watching, THEY ARE WITH US."

Yes. And, we all know where the 'swamp' is and it is ironic that it's called 'Foggy Bottom.'

I am rushing to an early meeting and will have further responses to your excellent observations later today.


Peace.

[Beam Me Up]

24. .

[understandinglife]

27. "No," said Cindy, "I think the President works for us."

Another reporter asked "Do you think the President should be influenced by protests or should make his own judgment."

"No," said Cindy, "I think the President works for us." This remark was followed by laughter and cheers. Cindy went on to point out that polls show a majority of the country agreeing with those at Camp Casey. "What I wanted when I came out here," she said, eliciting more laughter from the press, "was just a performance review for the president."

Another reporter asked Cindy to compare this anti-war movement to that during the Vietnam War. She replied that she had been in elementary school then, but that she knew that this one had started much sooner.

And she stressed that it needs to end now. "How many more soldiers have to die? We don't want to see any more flag-draped coffins." Cindy described the conditions under which soldiers are working in Iraq, with poor food, insufficient supplies and armor. "They're creating injured soldiers and closing veterans' hospitals," she said, "and we're being accused of not supporting the troops!"

From Cindy Meets The Media by David Swanson on August 26, 2005

Link:

http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/?q=node/2219

Before the end of September, we should have instilled a realization in almost all Americans that each and every one of them is a stakeholder in America -- that is Cindy Sheehan's simple message.

As stakeholders "We The People" have every right to demand performance from those we pay to do certain jobs. Many of the people in those jobs have failed and we have recourse, well before Nov 2006 or any future regularly scheduled election, to remove them from office.

What needs to happen, now that we have a medium in which we can rapidly disseminate information, develop strategies, plan and distribute action items, is ensure as much access to every citizen as possible.

And the principal, simple message needs to be -- these people work for us, not the other way around. We need to be in their offices, local and in DC, telling them what we expect and showing them -- data on the screen of the laptop we stick in front of them and their staff -- exactly what they have and have not done.

The pomp, the ceremony, the pageantry, the fast moving big black SUVs -- all that is bull shit and we pay for it. That must stop because it provides all kinds of convenient barriers, behind which the 'haves' and 'have mores' contrive ways to have even more -- at the expense of humanity and the environment.


Peace.

[Beam Me Up]

40. .

[understandinglife]

25. John Podesta: "The truth hurts."

MEMO TO THE COMMUNITY

To: Interested Parties

From: John Podesta

Date: August 25, 2005

RE: Memo to President Bush on Iraq

<clip>

As a former White House chief of staff, I can say that the most important duty of a senior advisor is not to say “yes, sir,” but to honestly present the facts and the options available to the country. If the president’s advisors can’t confront the truth or don’t have the courage to tell the president the truth, they shouldn’t have taken the job in the first place.

Instead of spending time plotting motorcade routes to avoid Cindy Sheehan protests, the president’s advisors should be spending their time laying out the situation on the ground and the impact the war is having on terrorist networks, regional stability, sectarian conflict within Iraq, our overstretched ground forces, and U.S. security.

The Center for American Progress has drafted a memo that outlines the facts and challenges in Iraq. This is the memo that the White House Iraq Group should – but probably won’t – send the president.

Link to the memo:

http://www.americanprogress.org/atf/cf/%7BE9245FE4-9A2B-43C7-A521-5D6FF2E06E03%7D/IRAQ_WHIG_AUG_25.PDF

We The People ... know what we need to DO.


Peace.

[Al-CIAda]

26. .

[understandinglife]

29. *Embedded/Live* nails the media's craven complicity in amplifying the ...

... drums of war."

*Embedded/Live* nails the media's craven complicity in amplifying the drums of war. As the Los Angeles Times noted in its review of the filmed version of the play (which premiered here in 2003), when a chorus invokes the name of Robert Novak, the audience's "laughter is followed by uneasy recognition. We might wish this were old news, but it's still there staring us in the face every day."

Indeed it is, for columnist Novak was the first to "out" Valerie Plame -- wife of whistle-blower Joe Wilson, a former ambassador--as a CIA agent. The case landed New York Times reporter Judith Miller in jail, turning her into a *cause celebre* for her refusal to testify before a grand jury about her contact with sources in the Plame case. "If journalists cannot be trusted to guarantee confidentiality, then journalists cannot function and there cannot be a free press," said Miller, dramatically equating the protection of secret sources with the survival of a free press.

But what her avowedly principled defense of journalistic sources may turn out to be is a window into the practice of official corruption of journalistic integrity in times of war, which is what Embedded/Live so effectively highlights.

Unfortunately, rather than a story about a martyr to the cause of journalistic ethics and a free press, this is about a reporter embedded over her head. It is a depressing example of how far Big Media has moved away from the journalistic ideal of "comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable."

<clip>

From Judith Miller: Embedded Over Her Head by Robert Scheer

on August 24, 2005

Link:

http://www.thenation.com/docprint.mhtml?i=20050829&s=scheer0824

The "messages" are out there and they are easy to understand.

We just need to spread them far and wide.


Peace.

[understandinglife]

30. August 24, 2005 - VIPS: "Recommendation - Try a Circle of "Wise Women""

Georgie boy.

They have sent you another memo.

Read it.

Or, have someone read it to you.

Take their advice - this time.

OK.

Wednesday 24 August 2005

Memorandum for: The President

From: Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity

Subject: Recommendation: Try a Circle of "Wise Women"

By way of re-introduction, we begin with a brief reminder of the analyses we provided you before the attack on Iraq. On the afternoon of February 5, 2003, following Colin Powell's speech before the UN Security Council that morning, we sent you our critique of his attempt to make the case for war. (You may recall that we gave him an "A" for assembling and listing the charges against Iraq and a "C-" for providing context and perspective.)

Unlike Powell, we made no claim that our analysis was "irrefutable/undeniable." We did point out, though, that what he said fell far short of justification for war. We closed with these words: "We are convinced that you would be well served if you widened the discussion beyond the circle of those advisers clearly bent on a war for which we see no compelling reason and from which we believe the unintended consequences are likely to be catastrophic."

To jog your memory further, the thrust of our next two pre-war memoranda can be gleaned from their titles: "Cooking Intelligence for War" (March 12) and "Forgery, Hyperbole, Half-Truth: A Problem" (March 18). When the war started, we reasoned at first that you might had been oblivious to our cautions. However, last spring's disclosures in the "Downing Street Memo" containing the official minutes of Tony Blair's briefing on July 23, 2002 - and the particularly the bald acknowledgement that "the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy" of war on Iraq - show that the White House was well aware of how the intelligence was being cooked. We write you now in the hope that the sour results of the recipe - the current bedlam in Iraq - will incline you to seek and ponder wider opinion this time around.

A Still Narrower Circle

With the departure of Colin Powell, your circle of advisers has shrunk rather than widened. The amateur architects of the Iraq war, Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, seem still to have your ear. At a similar stage of the Vietnam War, President Lyndon Johnson woke up to the fact that he had been poorly served by his principal advisers and quickly appointed an informal group of "wise men" to provide fresh insight and advice. It turned out to be one of the smartest things Johnson did. He was brought to realize that the US could not prevail in Vietnam; that he was finished politically; and that the US needed to move to negotiations with the Vietnamese "insurgents."

It is clear to those of us who witnessed at first hand the gross miscalculations on Vietnam that a similar juncture has now been reached on Iraq. We are astonished at the advice you have been getting - the vice president's recent assurance that the Iraqi resistance is "in its last throes," for example. (Shades of his assurances that US forces would be welcomed as "liberators" in Iraq.) And Secretary Rumsfeld's unreassuring reminders that "some things are unknowable" and the familiar bromide that "time will tell" are wearing thin. By now it is probably becoming clear to you that you need outside counsel.

The good news is that some help is on its way. Congresswoman Lynn Woolsey has taken the initiative to schedule a hearing on September 15, where knowledgeable specialists on various aspects of the situation in Iraq will present their views. Unfortunately, it appears that this opportunity to learn will fall short of the extremely informative bipartisan hearings led by Sen. William Fullbright on Vietnam. The refusal thus far of the House Republican leadership to make a suitable conference room available suggests that the Woolsey hearing, like the one led by Congressman John Conyers on June 16, will lack the kind of bipartisan support so necessary if one is to deal sensibly with the Iraq problem.

Meanwhile, we respectfully suggest that you could profit from the insights of the informal group of "wise women" right there in Crawford. You could hardly do better than to ride your bike down to Camp Casey. There you will find Gold Star mothers, Iraq (and Vietnam) war veterans, and others eager to share reality-based perspectives of the kind you are unlikely to hear from your small circle of yes-men and the yes-woman in Washington, none of whom have had direct experience of war. As you know, Cindy Sheehan has been waiting to get on your calendar. She is now back in Crawford and has resumed her Lazarus-at-the-Gate vigil in front of your ranch. We strongly suggest that you take time out from your vacation to meet with her and the other Gold Star mothers when you get back to Crawford later this week. This would be a useful way for you to acquire insight into the many shades of gray between the blacks and whites of Iraq, and to become more sensitized to the indignities that so often confound and infuriate the mothers, fathers, wives, and other relatives of soldiers killed and wounded there.

Names and Faces

Here are the names, ages, and hometowns of the eight soldiers, including Casey Sheehan, killed in the ambush in Sadr City, Baghdad on April 4, 2004:

Specialist Robert R. Arsiaga, 25, San Antonio, Texas
Specialist Ahmed A. Cason, 24, McCalla, Alabama
Sergeant Yihjyh L. Chen, 31, Saipan, Marianas
Specialist Israel Garza, 25, Lubbock, Texas
Specialist Stephen D. Hiller, 25, Opelika, Alabama
Corporal Forest J. Jostes, 22, Albion, Illinois
Sergeant Michael W. Mitchell, 25, Porterville, California
Specialist Casey A. Sheehan, 24, Vacaville, California

Mike Mitchell's father, Bill, has been camped out for two weeks with Cindy Sheehan and others a short bike ride from your place. They have a lot of questions - big and small. You are aware of the big ones: In what sense were the deaths of Casey, Mike Mitchell and the others "worth it?" In what sense is the continued occupation of Iraq a "noble cause?" No doubt you have been given talking points on those. But the time has passed for sound bites and rhetoric. We are suggesting something much more real - and private.

Questions

There are less ambitious - one might call them more tactical - questions that are also accompanied by a lot of pain and frustration. Those eight fine soldiers were killed by forces loyal to the fiercely anti-American Muqtada al-Sadr, the young Shia cleric with a militant following, particularly in Baghdad's impoverished suburbs. The ambush was part of a violent uprising resulting from US Ambassador Paul Bremer's decision to close down Al Hawza, al-Sadr's newspaper, on March 28, 2004.

And not only that. A senior aide of al-Sadr was arrested by US forces on April 3. The following day al-Sadr ordered his followers to "terrorize" occupation forces and this sparked the deadly street battles, including the ambush. Also on April 4, Bremer branded al-Sadr an "outlaw" and coalition spokesman Dan Senior said coalition forces planned to arrest him as well. In sum, before one can begin to understand the grief of Cindy, Bill, and the relatives of the other six soldiers killed, you need to know - as they do - what else was going on April 4, 2004.

You may wish to come prepared to answer specific questions like the following:

1. Closing down newspapers and arresting key opposition figures seem a strange way to foster democracy. Please explain. And how could Ambassador Bremer possibly have thought that al-Sadr would simply acquiesce?

2. Muqtada al-Sadr seems to have landed on his feet. At this point, he and other Shiite clerics appear on the verge of imposing an Islamic state with Shariah law and a very close relationship with Iran. With this kind of prospect, can you feel the frustration of Gold Star mothers when the extremist ultimately responsible for their sons' deaths assumes a leadership role in the new Iraq? Can you understand their strong wish to prevent the sacrifice of still more of our children for such dubious purpose?

Perhaps you will have good answers to these and other such questions. Good answers or no, we believe a quiet, respectful session with the wise women and perhaps others at your doorstep would give you valuable new insights into the ironic conundrums and human dimensions of the war in Iraq.

A member of our Steering Committee, Ann Wright, has been on site at Camp Casey from the outset and would be happy to facilitate such a session. A veteran Army colonel (and also a senior Foreign Service officer until she resigned in protest over the attack on Iraq), Ann has been keeping Camps Casey I and II running in a good-neighborly, orderly way. She is well known to your Secret Service agents, who can lead you to her. We strongly urge you not to miss this opportunity.

/s/
Gene Betit, Arlington, Virginia
Sibel Edmonds, Alexandria, Virginia
Larry Johnson, Bethesda, Maryland
David MacMichael, Linden, Virginia
Ray McGovern, Arlington, Virginia
Coleen Rowley, Apple Valley, Minnesota
Ann Wright, Honolulu, Hawaii

Steering Group Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity

Link:

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/printer_082405Q.shtml

Georgie boy.

Have you read it?

Did you have someone read it to you?

We are waiting for honest answers to simple questions.

We will not wait much longer before we send you and dickie and the other members of your failed administration home to mommy.

At least you get to go home.

Casey, Michael, Forest, Israel, Stephen, Yihjyh, Ahmed & Robert will never see their mother, or anyone else, ever again -- BECAUSE OF YOU.


Peace.

[Amonester]

31. Endless wars are exactly what the PNAC signatories want.

"Far from eliminating the threat it would enhance it exponentially."

So according to the PNAC, this quote perfectly reveals their war-profiteering policies for this 21st Century and beyond.

That's what they want: endless increase in the number of enemies so their war-profiteering options will never stop buoying!

Why they don't dare writing it plain, simple and most of all, truthfully in the NYT, in clear writing, and very short too?

Is it because they know it's clearly NOT what the citizens want?

Asking the question more than answers it!!

Far from eliminating the threat it enhances it exponentially.

Here, NYT. Why don't you get the guts to print exactly what the PNAC signatories WANT, hey?

No chicken s**t! Stop hiding under the desks you hypocrite bastards!

:mad:

[understandinglife]

33. Yes. And here's a glimpse of the threat becoming exponential.

Ali al Saadi/AFP — Getty Images

In Baghdad, above, and several other Iraqi cities, supporters of Moktada al-Sadr protested against the draft constitution.

Marwan Ibrahim/AFP — Getty Images

In Kirkuk, more than 2,000 Sunnis chanted "No to federalism," a key dispute in the draft charter.

August 26, 2005

Sunnis Protest Charter as Leaders Struggle to Finalize It

By ROBERT F. WORTH

BAGHDAD, Iraq, August 26 - Thousands of Sunni Arabs rallied in central and northern Iraq today to protest the proposed Iraqi constitution.

<clip>

Sunni political leaders have refused to agree to the proposed document in large part because of a Shiite proposal to create a vast autonomous region in Iraq's oil-rich south. The Sunnis say that proposal - which would parallel the federal zone governed by the Kurds in northern Iraq - could cripple the Iraqi state, and allow neighboring Iran to dominate the Shiite south.

<clip>

Separately, thousands of followers of the rebel Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr marched in Baghdad and two southern cities, denouncing the American presence and lashing out at rival Shiite groups.

<clip>

On a day of relative calm in the rest of the country, insurgents continued their campaign of violence in the capital. Gunmen opened fire on an Iraqi Army patrol in Doura, in southern Baghdad, killing one soldier, an Interior Ministry official said. Nearby, a roadside bomb exploded near a police patrol close to the Doura oil refinery, killing one officer and wounding two, the official said.

Link:

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/26/international/middleeast/26cnd-baghdad.html?hp=&pagewanted=print

All as predicted by the courageous and expert members of VIPS.


Peace.

[understandinglife]

35. "We know that fundamentalist moods arise wherever U.S. bases appear."

One of the senators accused the United States of fueling extremism.

"We know that fundamentalist moods arise wherever U.S. bases appear. Enemies of the United States appear wherever there is a U.S. military presence, and we don't want to be caught in between," Kashkadarya region governor Nuritdin Zainiyev said before the vote.

The head of Senate's foreign relations committee and the country's former foreign minister, Sadyk Safayev, said the withdrawal of U.S. troops was demanded by Kashkadarya's people because of alleged environmental damage caused by the base's activity, including increased health problems among people and water and air pollution.

<clip>

From Uzbek vote to expel U.S. troops on August 26, 2005

Link:

http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/asiapcf/08/26/uzbek.us.ap/index.html

Seems that whatever you're spreading, georgie boy, its toxic.


Peace.

[mod mom]

32. kick for the truth. Thanks UL!

[Nothing Without Hope]

34. kick - this is an important thread. n/t

[rodeodance]

36. kick and thanks

[Seabiscuit]

41. Wow. Kick. n/t

[Karenina]

43. Again.

:kick:

[Nothing Without Hope]

44. A kick and a cartoon that really captures the Poodle Press, except that

there are so many things that are deliberately twisted or suppressed altogether. So much of it is simple laziness:

[understandinglife]

45. A perfect cartoon to match with the message in the OP!!

Thank you Hope!


Peace.