Downinged and be-Damned
The Downing Street Minutes ("Memo") and subsequent leaked materials documenting frantic pre-war book-cooking by Bush and his fellow conspirators seem to be seeping into even some semi-mainstream media. What I heard of Congressman Conyers’ hearings today on the subject (covered on CSPAN and abundantly and enthusiastically commented on at Democratic Underground) was blood-pumping and, well, frankly tear-making stuff. I’m elated to think that the blunt honest speaking I heard will become a matter of public record. (We’ll see what those corporate-managed sorts have to say about it - if anything - in the AM. New York Times, sorry little Chalabi-lapdog that you have become, how about at least a little growl??)
However, we must not focus too exclusively on the matter of corrupt and criminal fact-fixing and lying to Congress and the supposedly represented American people in the run-up to war. Let us not forget that Bush and his jolly little team of Armageddon-seekers actually had a full-fledged air war going well before Congress was even solicited to go spineless and yield the critical war-making authority. The idea that we were already bombing the hell out of Iraq seems to me to be a whole new level of criminal and impeachable behavior. Paul Loeb has some good insights under the title "More Damning than Downing Street":
It's bad enough that the Bush administration had so little international support for the Iraqi war that their "coalition of the willing" meant the U.S., Britain, and the equivalent of a child's imaginary friends. It's even worse that, as the Downing Street memo confirms, they had so little evidence of real threats that they knew from the start that they were going to have manufacture excuses to go to war. What's more damning still is that they effectively began this war even before the congressional vote.
With Congressman John Conyers about to hold hearings, coverage of the Downing Street memo is finally beginning to leak into the media. In contrast, we've heard almost nothing about the degree to which this administration began actively fighting the Iraq war well in advance of the March 2003 official attack--before both the October 2002 US Congressional authorization and the November United Nations resolution requiring that Saddam Hussein open the country up to inspectors.
I follow Iraq pretty closely, but was taken aback when Charlie Clements, now head of the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee, described driving in a Baghdad neighborhood six months before the war "and a building would just explode, hit by a missile from 30,000 feet -'What is that building?'" Clements would ask. "'Oh, that's a telephone exchange.'" Later, at a conference at Nevada's Nellis Air Force Base, Clements heard a U.S. General boast "that he began taking out assets that could help in resisting an invasion at least six months before war was declared."
Earlier this month, Jeremy Scahill wrote a powerful piece on The Nation's website, describing a huge air assault in September 2002.
[clip]
However, we must not focus too exclusively on the matter of corrupt and criminal fact-fixing and lying to Congress and the supposedly represented American people in the run-up to war. Let us not forget that Bush and his jolly little team of Armageddon-seekers actually had a full-fledged air war going well before Congress was even solicited to go spineless and yield the critical war-making authority. The idea that we were already bombing the hell out of Iraq seems to me to be a whole new level of criminal and impeachable behavior. Paul Loeb has some good insights under the title "More Damning than Downing Street":
It's bad enough that the Bush administration had so little international support for the Iraqi war that their "coalition of the willing" meant the U.S., Britain, and the equivalent of a child's imaginary friends. It's even worse that, as the Downing Street memo confirms, they had so little evidence of real threats that they knew from the start that they were going to have manufacture excuses to go to war. What's more damning still is that they effectively began this war even before the congressional vote.
With Congressman John Conyers about to hold hearings, coverage of the Downing Street memo is finally beginning to leak into the media. In contrast, we've heard almost nothing about the degree to which this administration began actively fighting the Iraq war well in advance of the March 2003 official attack--before both the October 2002 US Congressional authorization and the November United Nations resolution requiring that Saddam Hussein open the country up to inspectors.
I follow Iraq pretty closely, but was taken aback when Charlie Clements, now head of the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee, described driving in a Baghdad neighborhood six months before the war "and a building would just explode, hit by a missile from 30,000 feet -'What is that building?'" Clements would ask. "'Oh, that's a telephone exchange.'" Later, at a conference at Nevada's Nellis Air Force Base, Clements heard a U.S. General boast "that he began taking out assets that could help in resisting an invasion at least six months before war was declared."
Earlier this month, Jeremy Scahill wrote a powerful piece on The Nation's website, describing a huge air assault in September 2002.
[clip]
posted by Sir Gumbo at 11:31 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home