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.

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Get Away From That Book!

I've been doing some hard thinking and sweaty research in hopes of better understanding what it could be in the water way out in that upper left corner of the lower 48. Washington State ("the other Washington" as a recent Chamber of Commerce program had it) was out of step in both of the last presidential elections, always troubling for anyone who likes unanimity rather than diversity. And then there has been the disturbing lawsuit protesting the gubernatorial election, filed by the republicans if you can imagine (risking raising questions about the presidential elections elsewhere that virtually all - defying all probability - in the past two national elections actually went their way, either by magical behind-the-curtain means or by Supreme Court fiat). A land of strangeness and mystery for sure. I haven't been able to track down proof, but I wonder if "Ripley" is an unusually common surname in the state?

I have turned up a report in the magazine Engineering News-Record (I'm guessing you do not subscribe to ENR) that may give some clues on the source of at least some of this subversive, out-of-step behavior. This article indicates that the Seattle Public Library has completed 15 of 27 projects in a $235 million program of library upgrades, featuring most prominently the recent completion of the $154 million new downtown Seattle flagship. That's a lot of projects and a wad of dough!

This has to be a concern to anyone properly supporting the Patriot Act and associated management of information flow. Even more disturbing, the new downtown library has reportedly been visited by 10,000 to 16,000 visitors per day since the opening, far exceeding expectations. It doesn't seem to have occurred to the rather timid ENR reporters, as they don't mention the possibility, but this researcher worries whether some of those visitors might have been inadvertently exposed to books and literature. What if they checked out or even read some?? That could be just the sort of smoking gun we have been looking for.

When you couple this with the news that the republican lawsuit was recently dismissed and the "ohmigod" realization that the state as a result now features a female governor and two female senators, I think we can suspend the research.

Anything could happen in a place as strange as Washington.

Loving Your Neighbor

There's some great dialogue underway at the TPM Cafe that ought to be of interest to anyone with a historical connection to the bible or other trappings of Christianity and thus inclined towards compassion, tolerance, and other Christ-like feelings wholly out of step with those in power these days.

Annie Lamott, a writer I admire, gets the ball rolling with this confessional:

Culture, Sort of

My boyfriend, who is South African, pronounces Christians 'Christy-ins', and he usually says the word with a hint—or more—of contempt. It sounds repellant to my ears, and it also gets at the truth of what Christianity tends to look like these days. I am not sure I am going to call myself a Christian for awhile, although I need to talk to Ed Kilgore about this first.

I used to think it was necessary for religious liberals and progressives who follow Christ's teachings to align ourselves with Jesus, who 100% of the time, has always heard and drawn close to the suffering of the poor. But with every passing day, calling yourself a Christian makes it sound as if you have anything in common with the Right wing's imperialistic corporate Christianity. It makes them sound more legitimate, instead of the Christy-ins whom they have shown themselves to be. They are doing hideous things in the name of Jesus. They seem absolutely clueless about the fact that God is not a white American male, and is independent of American foreign policy. Everything they say is couched in language that makes them sound like they are right in the heart of Jesus, when they are doing [what] is called, to use the theological term, ‘fucking the poor.’ So I think for the time being, I would like to be referred to as The Artist Who Formerly Called Herself a Christian. If anyone asks, I will explain that I do love Uncle Jesus, and I live for my church, and other churches that, like the early Christians, celebrate mystery and diversity, and believe that we are here to take care of our brothers and sisters.

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The aforementioned Mr. Kilgore then weighs in:

Broken Communion

I know I've been posting a lot, but it's Sunday, and Annie Lamott's powerful confession that's she half-ashamed to be identified as a Christian these days is eminently worthy of comment.

She's got her finger on something that's terribly real for a lot of Christians on both sides of the cultural and political wars here and around the world: You look at those on the other side and think: Can these people possibly be Christians? And if so, who am I?

I've struggled with this myself, much as Annie has. I can barely comprehend the views of "Bible-based" evangelical Protestants who somehow think the primary message of Scripture in our time is to ban abortion, proscribe homosexuality, put women back "in their place," support state-sponsored religious displays, and identify with the foreign policy of the United States as carried out by George W. Bush. And Christian Right leaders have made it abundantly clear they think people like me and Annie are infidels and poseurs of the highest order.

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There's more to both posts, as well as commentary, all worth reading. You won't find this sort of thing in your corporate-run media, that's for sure.

Bush: Ever the Toughie, as Long As He Can Stay Home and Have Mommy Nurse Him

More than a few of us have been impatient for the Downing Street Minutes to gain more airplay. That memo seems to relatively unequivocally document what thinking folks (hopefully unafraid to wear the label "reality-based") have come to understand, namely that the invasion of Iraq was settled on by our pathetic little smirking appointed-but-never-elected dictator first and the excuses ginned up later. There seems to be a bit more of that happening now, occasionally even in the corporate-controlled media. It's certainly reassuring to think there may be new Deep Throats beyond the boundaries of the former democracy that occupied the space between Canada and Mexico who may be able to help in bringing down the pompous elitists who can never admit to an error - or actually be accountable.

Breaking news today suggests more incriminating evidence of government collusion to find an excuse for a pre-determined invasion of Iraq. That certainly has a criminal sound to it.

From Editor and Publisher:

Just as the U.S. media attempts—-albeit a month late—-to get on top of the so-called “Downing Street Memo,” the Sunday Times in London reports another leaked document which confirms and goes behind the message of the memo.

“Ministers were warned in July 2002 that Britain was committed to taking part in an American-led invasion of Iraq and they had no choice but to find a way of making it legal,” the Sunday Times reports.

The warning, in a leaked Cabinet Office briefing paper, said Prime Minister Tony Blair had already agreed to back military action to get rid of Saddam Hussein at a summit at the Texas ranch of President George W Bush three months earlier. The briefing paper, for participants at a meeting of Blair’s inner circle on July 23, 2002, said that since regime change was illegal it was “necessary to create the conditions” which would make it legal.

This was required because the American military would be using British bases in any invasion, making England complicit in any illegal U.S. action.

The paper was circulated to those present at the meeting, among whom was Blair.

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And from the Sunday Times:

MINISTERS were warned in July 2002 that Britain was committed to taking part in an American-led invasion of Iraq and they had no choice but to find a way of making it legal.

The warning, in a leaked Cabinet Office briefing paper, said Tony Blair had already agreed to back military action to get rid of Saddam Hussein at a summit at the Texas ranch of President George W Bush three months earlier.

The briefing paper, for participants at a meeting of Blair’s inner circle on July 23, 2002, said that since regime change was illegal it was “necessary to create the conditions” which would make it legal.

This was required because, even if ministers decided Britain should not take part in an invasion, the American military would be using British bases. This would automatically make Britain complicit in any illegal US action.

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