How do all of you feel about the revelations yesterday by Durbin?

[Beaverhausen]

I just watched my recording of Countdown wherein Durbin announced that the members of the senate intelligence committee in 2002 had different intelligence than the rest of us, and their intel pointed to the fact that there was no proof of Saddam's WMD, but they couldn't reveal it because they were sworn to secrecy.

I sat on my couch crying, and I'm sick to my stomach.

I wondered just which other Dems were on that committee.

I am absolutely heartbroken to learn that Edwards was on that committee.

He is the one I truly wanted to be president, the only one I have so far donated any money too.

But I am really at a loss here to be able to support him now.

I would love to hear your thoughts about this. I want to be talked back into supporting him. I believe in him and believe that the issues he speaks to are very important. And of couse, there is his wonderful wife...

Please help me get my Edwards mojo back.

[PATRICK]

1. Before the pretext

The WMD argument was the center point public pretext for the war, absent an incident which could not be provoked because the last thing Saddam would ever do would be to enable that. In the WH itself outside the innermost circle of sleaze, many were anguished over the fact that phony WMD's would become the focus in order to quickly and decisively invade Iraq. All the policies and reasons that both parties shared for getting rid of Saddam had led to and become fixed in enforced sanctions and no-fly zones.

To go to war, which Junior had to have, public pressure had to be added from 9/11 and WMD fear to push the establishment the extra step. As in ALL other policies, the pressure worked, moving the politicians in a sort of triangulation of accepted policy, public pressure falsely used, and the gift of 911 itself to the political mojo of Bush and the majority GOP, the gift that kept on giving. For 911 had created or mushroomed a vaster policy already. To exclude Iraq from becoming the next chapter needed some serious digging in of the heels. Some Dems rightly did so with zero impact on the establishment public pressure. The anti-war movement was likewise or worse marginalized and excluded despite the fact that easily the majority of Americans would have been against the war were it not for the propagandized lies and suppression of dissent and the facts.

Even Kennedy and Byrd were working within the system, the very trap of point A that gave the president the authority to move to point B. Dean stepped over, in time, to that movement, breaking away from the policy establishment trap.

The same simplistic lie that sold the war to the masses is now slung over Bush's mandate corpse. Even reporters at that time(Judith Miller) publicly admitted they were welling lies. The tar ignores the harder truths still. Bush's abuse of hard or vicious policy in the ME ruins both his malicious goals and the normal bi-partisan accepted policy. Ruins the alliance with Israel and and democracy and peace in the region.

I have a much more general pain and a desire that ALL US policy now taken to its worst extremes fundamentally change its reliance of force, hegemony, corporate goals and cynical alliances. All od Foggy Bottom and a disengaged nation floats on the tracks of establishment drift, moving on parallel courses to destruction, one knowing with poor judgment and unwillingness to change, the other ignorant grasping at media memes hung like symbols on realities underneath the smoke of deception.

So, precisely, I understand how moving from Bush and his crony media to the Congress, creates the anger. Salvaging, redemption or revolution? The whole conduct of foreign policy has been one of remote shadows for the American people whose only input is assent or dissent. What Congress knew about the people, the people free from MSM hypnosis or reacting against it, gave them no hope or inclination to buck the system. The Army and the Congress was driven dutifully down familiar roads and veered off to die in Baghdad.

More precisely, that committee with their oh so secret the public can't know rules that madly created the very power impelling the public to support a war. So what to do. Become a Senatorial Ellsberg or at the least a vocal critic of a war that the rules wouldn't allow you to reveal deflating info? Or let Junior complete a mission against Saddam and remove a big danger in the ME in such a strategic way as to have a significant impact on all problems?

They chose the latter and Bush drove the permission to hell, first going to war ignoring the caveats and understandings and the goals and the proper implementation, and destroying every single possibility except that the oil companies get to rape Iraq forever. Edwards nor any other, nor most GOPers even of the worst sort, expected this abuse and failure. Even a abusive policy succeeding would have furthered general US goals(to the political detriment of noble Dem enablers) or a failed noble effort were never in the cards if you just knew Bush and Cheney like WE know Bush and Cheney. To us it was a dim possibility. To Congress it seemed a certainty that they would take the best road to success and use it in traditional political ways and with traditional bi-partisan support.

Only now are they revealed for what they are and the horror of what has happened and what we have done. Only lately have many given up talk of conducting the occupation better to win. Only Kucinich has been proved right.

All I can say for the entire leadership and "elite" establishment that swallowed up all, like Edwards, in this big unending and unstopped con job and despotism grab, thanks for the foresight, the judgment. We too had felt like we were losing our minds, at first wanting very much to believe someone would veer this right, something would check to wrongness. Everyone outside DC were spectators told to be cheerleaders, treated like enemy aliens for protesting publicly, made to feel guilty for harboring doubt or logic. Everything bad about everything was perfectly led to hell by Bush. it isn't just Edwards that evokes the horror and the shame, it is everything about what Mark Twain calls "the damned human race" that took responsible wisdom and so easily and predictably ended up in mashed and powderized innocent women and children and an eviscerated American nation. And it it happened here because it could.

This isn't much of an answer except to say that feeling shock at this revelation is much to me. We all knew all along what the sworn to secrecy Congressmen really knew. We all knew about the judgment the intentions, the timidity or noble or ignoble calculations of it all- which continue to let our soldiers die gratuitously for the oil contracts. Nothing substantially has changed since then except that the general population has come to see the upfront Bush selling points as truly phony. Public pressure now is the other way around, despite the universal media self-protective squid ink cloud, and we still are getting tentative, calculated and dangerously "wise" leadership. Get behind the voices we have, the change and the chance to get the crud out of the WH which is the ONLY way we will get the troops and the oil claws out of Iraq. I feel our strongest bet is with Edwards though undoubtedly our purest war policy mind has always been Kucinich.

[IndyOp]

2. Okay, where do I start - just thinking this through for myself...

Clinton is waaaaaay out of line with her statements on Iran.

Obama's statements are virtually just as worrying.

Clearly Kucinich and Gravel are the only sane candidates - they see and speak the truth. If either takes off I will donate to them and work for them. I worked for Kucinich in the last election - we didn't get very far in my little town. I've donated to him occasionally since that time. I very much appreciate the work that both of these men are doing.

Edwards is doing great re: poverty, unions, inspiring the people to rise and take control, repealing NAFTA and, of course, Edwards is putting his rep on the line to PUSH the Congress to get out of Iraq as soon as possible - see "The Question I Wasn't Asked"

WE KNEW that the "players" in Congress knew that the WMDs argument was a big hellish lie. Now with Durbin's statements on the floor of the Senate we know who knew - and it includes Edwards.

Deep breath.

My current appreciation for Edwards has been with my understanding that he was a CO-SPONSOR of the Iraq resolution and that his co-sponsorship most likely had everything to do with cold, calculating political strategy -- with the Presidency in mind. How could he do that within just a few years of losing Wade? Send other people's sons off to die? He must've been convinced that it really would be "bloodless" - or nearly so. No excuse. None.

What I've wondered over and over is how they - all of them - could not have known that they were being lied to? Why wouldn't they assume, with good reason, that we were all being lied to. And then I think about watching video of the "precision" bombs being dropped on Iraq during the Gulf War - and thinking that it was a good thing that we were disarming the bad people in Iraq. I was one of the masses that didn't think an inch further than what I saw on the video on the nightly news. And I was one of the masses that the pols would have been afraid to cross - speaking out against the war would've caused me to think they were cowardly and/or traitors. And, so, part of the cold, calculating political strategy for which I love to hate politicians is a reflection of my weaknesses.

In other words, I want Edwards to have the courage to tell the WHOLE truth about what he knew, when, and why he did what he did. Tell the WHOLE truth and let the chips fall where they may. If he does that, then I am willing to forgive him.

I need to hear him speak boldly about foreign policy, in general, and the US role in the world - hear him sounding at least a little like Kucinich and Gravel.

I'd rather know the lousy truths about the candidates than not know.

In the current field, Edwards is leading.

On edit - removed an incorrect P.S. about the number of people who had looked at this thread. Must've been something weird with the server...?

[PATRICK]

3. The people on top

went along with the charade presented to the public even though that charade was not the imminent nor entire reason for going to war. Then they went along with being influenced by that same charade so that there is little excuse in using the now circular thing about "political necessity".

They surrendered to the propaganda machine and went along with the anti-Saddam "virile" measures as consistent and desired policy. Then when Bush ruined every single fact that could be justified or argued for- except cynical oil dominance on behalf of mega corporations they used the "fait accompli"(but we could have done better) stance. Again a circular self-defense that holds no water. No one could be that ignorant of Bush, but they expected some measure of "success". The complete illegality and heinous crime of invasion, the fraudulent illegality of the entire Bush pResidency has been also relegated to this phony WMD propaganda. Dems STILL retreat behind the curtain they believe covers the public's full knowledge. War crime. Stolen election. Where is the truth? We know where the WMD's are. Apparently that is where the rest of truth still resides.

Had the occupation succeeded. Had the phony reporter/special team mission to "produce WMD's succeeded. Had the Bushies given an inch to competence or worthy goals- at all- the Dems would have skated submissively to modest political limbo. The consequences thus were also to be circular. Success or doom, the Dems lose by flying under the low and lower Bush radar, right into the ground. Right now they fly and feel the air, the speed and the wind. They are still headed directly into the ground and have not actually changed course. They might squeak through whereas Bush cannot pull off anything- except a new on Iran. And that is the mountainside the Dems will crash into if they keep enabling Bush as "President" and policies they think they are trapped into supporting.

Those policies, by the way, themselves need a vast overhauling or they will truly crash and burn as well, as most of the content should, but not all. They have always had a core of illogic and evil and narrow interest masked in neocon myth and US self-entitlement. they have been poisoned by DECADES(recently and longer than that) by the usual suspects who have throughout history been guaranteed to turn such ways to their personal power and profit. Poisoned irrevocably and endowed with murderers, dictators, crooks, plutocrats and media propaganda empires to spoil all hope for the future.

ALL the dangers in this world are recidivist, mythic, pyramidal, short sighted, backward illusionist, divisive and manipulative. And in the ecosystem under stress, utterly doomed to die the violent moronic death. The one thing the human race is not ready for is survival. Democracy, freedom of untainted information are one of the steps TOWARD the possibility of attaining that ability. One of the steps toward those things is supporting good people to lead us away to progress and the future once more.

I have blood on my soul too whether I supported this war or not. It washes over America like a tidal taint because of the tyrants we have so meekly allowed to rule us in utterly betrayed myths. There will be no redemptive rapture at the moment a Democrat is sworn in, not even Kucinich. It will be a turning point for the real work to start. For hope.

[iamjoy]

6. You Mention Wade

"...his co-sponsorship most likely had everything to do with cold, calculating political strategy -- with the Presidency in mind. How could he do that within just a few years of losing Wade? Send other people's sons off to die? He must've been convinced that it really would be "bloodless" - or nearly so..."

My belief is that he WOULDN'T have sent other people's sons (and daughters) off to die for political strategy. That whatever his reason was, however foolish or wrongheaded it was not opportunistic.

I cannot believe he is cold or calculating.

[venable]

9. this is absolutely correct

the loss of Wade is part of the reason that he would vote for the IWR - ie he thought, wrongly it turns out, that it would save the sons and daughters who would be lost in a WMD attack.

It was not political calculation, it was human calculation - ill-formed, but human nonetheless.

[saltpoint]

4. We know that a lot of people lied to a lot of other people regarding

Iraq.

We don't know which people lied to which others, though, and with which misleading or dishonest information.

We know that people as bright as George Tenet were compromised but the line between pure guilt and pure innocence is impossible for us to draw.

Singling out the Senate Intelligence Committee is a gesture long after the fact that PNAC wanted an assault on Iraq and was willing to do practically anything to get it.

I look to the source of the stream to determine why it's muddy downriver.

And the source points to PNAC.

[iamjoy]

5. Consider This

NO, Edwards was not convinced Iraq had WMD. He thought it possible Hussein did, or possible he was developing them. There was no proof ONE WAY OR THE OTHER on Hussein and WMDs.

So, Edwards weighs the options and consequences.

1. IF Hussein does have (or is close to having) WMDs and we do nothing - what happens? Disaster for America.
2. IF Hussein does not have (is not close to having) WMDs and we go to war to remove him - what happens? We rid the world of a brutal, thuggish dictator and bring Democracy to a Muslim nation. We gain another ally in that part of the world. At least, that's what was supposed to happen

My other suggestion is that Edwards saw the IWR as a bluff and wanted to make it as strong as possible. You know, bi-partisan support, as many Senators as possible behind the President on this issue - hoping that if we came across strongly enough, we wouldn't have to use force. It is not unlike the way a cat "puffs up" its fur when threatened - to appear as large as possible. You may say that's not very smart, it's also like pointing a gun and you don't do that unless you plan to fire, but again, which would be worse 1 or 2?

[AndyA]

7. I wrote to his campaign and asked them to officially respond to this issue.

I'll let you know if I hear anything, I'm very concerned as well.

[venable]

8. I had a conversation with people close to the situation

at the time, and I can tell you that the thinking was like this:

JE was doubtful, but concerned that he not make the choice that would either waste lives on a pointless war, or one that would potentially jeopardize millions.

The only way millions would be jeopardized would be if, in fact, the WMD were real, including imminent nukes.

He got WH fed intel, but still had doubts, a la Durbin.

He then was told, point blank, by Tenet, that the WMD were real.

He had to make a choice: act now and possibly save millions, or don't act and risk the unimaginable.

It was a hard choice, but he decided to vote for the IWR.

The important note about Wade is apt, but is being read wrong: Edwards was not naive or blithe about deaths, and IT WAS FOR THIS VERY REASON THAT HE VOTED FOR THE IWR. He thought it would save lives.

He was wrong. That's why he says: I was wrong.

[IndyOp]

10. He learned in the Senate Intelligence Committe that there were no WMDs, but

Tenet told him there were...? That is important information, if so -- my own Congressman says that he set to vote against the IWR and then Rumsfeld told him there were WMDs so he voted in favor.

I am left with the question, "Why don't they ALL understand that most of what they are going to hear from anyone about U.S. interests and military and CIA interventions are lies?"

:(

[venable]

12. Tenet is supposed to be non-partisan

it is inherent in the function of intelligence gathering that partisan concerns, or political consequences of intelligence, should play no part in the gathering and reporting of intelligence.

Tenet, as opposed to Rummy, should be trustworthy.

At the time that Tenet was reporting to Edwards and to the Senate Intel Cte, there was little or no reason to think that he was being influenced by the neocon project. One could discount Perle, Wolfowitz, Feith, and certainly Rummy - one could assume that they would spin the pure intelligence coming from the CIA.

But getting it straight from a professional spy, this should be un-spun. There is a difference between pure intel and spun intel. Tenet is supposed to be pure.

I have ALWAYS been 100% certain that everything this WH says is a lie, unless it is the rare occasion where the truth fits their needs.

But, in 2002 and 2003 and even 2004, I would be inclined to trust that the CIA was outside of the influence of the WH. I would have believed Tenet had he told me that. I would have been wrong, and I would not believe him today (about anything), but that is the benefit of hindsight.

By the way, I understand that the intel re Iran coming from the CIA, via Mossad, is equally unpure.

[Catchawave]

11. Beav...trust him

:hug: