quote: Eighty-eight members of Congress have signed a letter authored by Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) calling on President Bush to answer questions about a secret U.S.-UK agreement to attack Iraq, RAW STORY has learned.
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In a letter, Conyers and other members say they are disappointed the mainstream media has not touched the revelations.
"Unfortunately, the mainstream media in the United States was too busy with wall-to-wall coverage of a "runaway bride" to cover a bombshell report out of the British newspapers," Conyers writes. "The London Times reports that the British government and the United States government had secretly agreed to attack Iraq in 2002, before authorization was sought for such an attack in Congress, and had discussed creating pretextual justifications for doing so."
One of those things that no definitive evidence will ever be given either way, I'm sure, but interesting, nonetheless. It occurs to me, though, that even if this is absolutely true and somehow tapes are found recording Blair and Bush puffing on big, fat cee-gars, chortling about how they're going to take over Iraq and put one over on their respective countries, will it matter? Will it change anyone's mind regarding Iraq or Bush/Blair? I don't see it. In the current political climate, Bush--any president from now on, really--is a politician that you'd have to find with a live boy or a dead girl to make any dent in where he stands with any group, at this point. There'll always be counter-spin to give enough reasons for the faithful to not change their mind regarding their man.
Ah, well. America prevails.
Posts: 13123 | Registered: Feb 2002
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Eighty eight members of congress on the wall, eighty members of congress. Take one down, pass it around, eighty seven members of congress on the wall...
Posts: 8355 | Registered: Apr 2003
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We're discussing this on Ornery, too, Storm, and the general consensus is that, no, it won't matter. Those of us who were called paranoid traitors for saying this in the first place will be "vindicated," of course, but it's clear that the country's "moved on" from that point; it's not like pundits over at Fox News are going to say, "Hey, guess what? All those whiny liberals were right a few years ago. We're really sorry."
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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I have this nagging suspicion that the Bush Administration will maybe, just maybe, dispute the veracity of a document that proves all the worst things his most vehement critics have been saying about him were true all along.
Wait a minute...put that way, I would have to question its veracity.
Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
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quote:Originally posted by Morbo: Rakeesh, Blair's people were quoted in the article as saying "the document contained 'nothing new.'"
They aren't denying it, just trying to spin it.
Morbo, that could mean two things. Either they're not disputing the claims, or they're saying that the accusations are nothing new.
Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
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posted
While I see your point about the meaning of "nothing new", surely such an important, official, classified document (quote: "The Downing Street minutes, headed “Secret and strictly personal — UK eyes only”, detail one of the most important meetings ahead of the invasion.") would be immediately and vehemently labeled a forgery if it was untrue.
Instead, they say it's "nothing new." To me, that means they concede the document is the minutes of a minister's meeting.
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Moreover, it should be pointed out that these 88 Congresspeople are merely asking the Bush Administration to confirm or deny the accuracy of the document's contents.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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(2) being contingent upon getting approval for funding from their legislatures,
(3) something they could go ahead and do on their own authority (which they could) and expect that the legislatures would agree to fund it,
(4) something they were going to deliberately, knowingly lie about their reasons for doing?
Only the fourth one would be problematic. Some people might object to the third one, saying that only Congress can constitutionally declare war--but that is an old cavile, futile to pursue; no war has been declared by Congress since World War II, and yet the American military has fought wars in Korea, Vietnam, Grenada, Panama, Haiti, Bosnia, Kuwait (vs. Iraq), Afghanistan, and Iraq. (I think I got them all.)
Even the fourth one may not have been a discussion of deliberate intention to tell outright lies, but rather how to present what evidence or intelligence reports they have in the light most favorable to what they want to do (which really is what anyone would do).
The political left seems unwilling to credit President Bush or Prime Minister Blair with a sincere and principled conviction that their sworn duty impells them to oppose terror forcefully, and that attacking Iraq was a legitimate means for doing that. It is only as memories of 9/11 become more distant and faded with the passage of time that the attacks of the left against these two world leaders become more strident and paranoid.
Posts: 3742 | Registered: Dec 2001
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Ron, I'd argue that ALL of those were problematic, if you assume that the president's job is to serve the American people.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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quote:Originally posted by quidscribis: Eighty eight members of congress on the wall, eighty members of congress. Take one down, pass it around, eighty seven members of congress on the wall...
Darn, quid beat me to it. Posts: 4174 | Registered: Sep 2003
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Hi Tom. I moved, and for a while had problems with Spyware messing up my Internet connections. But that problem has been fixed, and I still drop by here from time to time.
The president's job is to serve the best interests of the people, as he sees those best interests would best be served. He is not obligated to govern by consensus. Vox populi vex Dei! The people are often wrong, and need to be led, especially in terms of moral issues.
The four possiblities I listed may all be problematic, but none convinct the President or Tony Blair of doing anything wrong.
If what they discussed were merely a hypothetical scenario, that would simply be a matter of being prepared, in the same sense in which the Pentagon routinely war-games practically every military scenario imaginable.
If they merely dicussed a scenario contingent upon getting legislative approval, then again it would be little more than being prepared to do their jobs.
If they discussed doing something pre-emptively and expected the legislatures to go along, then this could be problematic in the sense that no president or prime minister would voluntarily give up a power that the legislatures have ceded to the executive branch ever since World War II ended. This whole issue of who declares war should be addressed formally in a national debate, perhaps requiring a constitutional amendment to clarify the points that have become muddied over the years.
If presenting your reasons for taking action in the best possible light is problematic, then we should outlaw public relations in general.
Posts: 3742 | Registered: Dec 2001
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"The president's job is to serve the best interests of the people, as he sees those best interests would best be served."
This strikes me as somewhat unnervingly patriarchal.
But let's say I grant this.
What, then, is owed to those of us who said, "Hey, the president has already decided to take us to war, and he's lying about his reasons," but were shouted down when we did so? At the time, very few of our opponents were willing to countenance this claim; clearly, something about it was indeed offensive.
What was it, then, that they found so offensive that they felt it was unlikely?
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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Except some of us weren't. Some of were saying all along that the WMD case for war was unproven and that war was not the only option, even if one desired "regime change."
2) Options 1-4 may all be legal...
Sure, unless the President lies and is caught in a lie. Leading the most powerful nation into war on made-up pretexts is NOT a power granted to the President now or at any time in the past by our Constitution.
So...
if this was a strategem involving deliberate misuse or selective with-holding of information with the intent to land the US and Britain in a war against Saddam Hussein, there are some interesting options:
1) Congress could start impeachment procedings. Not gonna happen. The GOP controls both houses of Congress and basically Bush is "unimpeachable" (in the legal sense only -- I make no claims about his character in stating this).
2) The World Court could decide that the US (and perhaps Britain) have reneged on their duty to investigate and try war crimes by their own citizens (including leaders). While embarrassing (should the World Court ever decide this), it's doubtful any such allegation would lead to actual charges against Bush et al. If by some weird happenstance charges were filed, I suspect that the outcome of the trial would be moot simply because there's no way that the World Court could impose a sentence on a US President or on the PM of Great Britain.
3) It could become such a stinking scandal that the GOP has another melt-down like in the post-Nixon years and/or the Labour Party in Britain similarly goes down in flames for a while. This too seems to me to be pretty unlikely. Bush seems unassailable. Blair's party (and Blair himself) were just returned to power. Indications of a popular rejection of these two men are not very strong.
Basically, unless the war in Iraq were to become wildly unpopular, there is just no way that this long-ago deniable event/agreement can ever be made to stick to them.
I do believe, like Tom, that when the time comes to declassify the documents (in 50+ years) and historians have a chance to analyze some more of the facts and strategies, the reputations of both Bush and Blair will take a hit.
Will it matter?
Not in the least.
Viewed from one perspective, it's the perfect crime. No-one who isn't already implicated could ever gain access to the proof or documents. The "accused" and their supporters completely control the release of information. And they both enjoy enough popular support (and are now both lame ducks) that they just don't need to care.
The only problem is that the rest of us can't really know for sure if they were right or not.
And frankly, while I agree that Saddam had to go, I care more about the moral high ground -- the ability to know that we acted according to our own best principles -- than I do about the ousting of that terrible man.
Why? Because in the long run, there will always be Saddams in our world. How we deal with each one, in his turn, sets the stage, I believe, for who comes next and what truths they use against us to gain their sliver of power over their own people. Just as Saddam was the product of ill-advised power brokering by the US (and others) in reaction to other scum (like the Ayatollahs) who in turn scared us.
And the apparent truth of this situation makes me believe that a future Middle Eastern leader can and will use the nature of this war to rally support. And when that happens, we will have another choice to make. Strike faster and harder or suffer.
So...we'll need another warrrior-as-leader to take out the scum who are reacting our past bad behavior...again. And that set of actions will engender support for the next scum, and so on.
END NOTE: There's an alternative viewpoint which says that these people would hate us anyway. They hate everyone (other than their own sect within their own religion). And they have as a fundamental precept the destruction of all who do not believe the same as they do. And THUS, our bad behavior doesn't matter, because nothing we do will cause more of them to hate us, and nothing we do will cause them to stop wanting to kill us.
I simply have to tell you that having met Muslims from a variety of states and cultures both in their home countries and here in the US, this is a falsehood that is just as destructive as the Cold War lie that all Communists wanted to take over the US and enslave us.
Most of these people are peace-loving. Just like most of us. Most of these people don't like extremists. But if they feel threatened, they do what we do:
Demonize the enemy.
Declare war to the death.
Protect their own with pre-emptive violence.
I do not think our leaders are stupid. I do think, however, that they are led into taking the expedient solution, forcing things where necessary, by the very fact that no-one in that position can ever count on more than 8 years to work on any one problem, and no-one in that position can ever count on their approach being given any additional time to bear fruit after they have left office.
So, they do what "needs to get done" whether that's truly BEST for America or not.
Posts: 22497 | Registered: Sep 2000
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posted
I think any Senator who didn't sign this letter either knows what is in the notes already or would follow Bush/the Party even if it were publicly declared that he lied to send us to war.
Edit: for clearer language
Posts: 1592 | Registered: Jan 2001
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If it were 88 Senators, I'd say yeah, but it was 88 congresspeople, which isn't that high a percentage. Most of them probably chose due to politics (note that many not signing were necessarily democrats), and I can't really fault them in this case.
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
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What I find more important, assuming this is true, is the precedent it set in the minds of those in power.
We want war in Iraq. We distort and spin the facts to get our war.
Now, when mistakes happen in the war, those people believe they can again distort and spin the facts and remain safe.
The Republican Party is the party that demands people take responsibility for their actions, yet its leaders here are doing their best to avoid responsibility.
Then again, the Republican Party is the party of the Rugged Indvidualist, yet its present administration demands 100% loyalty from all of its people, attempting to turn Congressmen and Senators into simple polit-burro style yes men, and reign in any non-Republican thinking judges with talk of budget cuts, oversite committees, and other threats to judicial independence.
Posts: 11895 | Registered: Apr 2002
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Ah, alright 88 congresspeople. I still think it's irresponsible to not call for some sort of explanation about this.
The Republican Party is the party of states' rights, yet its current leadership pushes for VASTLY strengthened federal control in areas where there are only shreds of reason for national authority.
The Republican Party not only demands loyalty, it is blatantly anti-individual as far as civil rights are concerned.
Edit: I'm apparently unable to get through a single post without some minor factual error. Corrected to 88 congresspeople.
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