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Video: Alternative
Views
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Censured Casualties
features rare footage
of war crimes against the Iraqi people suffered during
and after the Gulf War. The footage is from former Attorney
General Ramsey
Clark in his attempt to document the injustice
of United States military actions in the region.
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Video: Alternative
Views
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Another Unknown
War
features a film on the
struggle of the indigenous people of West Papua to remain
sovereign in the face of an Indonesian invasion backed
by world capital. Footage of Noam
Chomsky on Western involvments in the region and
the relation to East Timor.
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Doug's New Books & Related
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TV/Radio
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Sunday, July 31, 2005
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Supreme Court nominee John Roberts had larger 2000 recount role than previously reported
Roberts had bigger role that Repugs let on in GRAND THEFT 2000, a stolen election and the biggest scandal political history
The Smirking Chimp: "Supreme Court nominee John Roberts had larger 2000 recount role than previously reported"
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Dramatic new charges deepen link between Ohio's 'Coingate,' Voinovich mob connections, and the theft of the 2004 election
new reports concerning Ohio Republican criminals and 2004 election fraud
The Smirking Chimp: "Dramatic new charges deepen link between Ohio's 'Coingate,' Voinovich mob connections, and the theft of the 2004 election"
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Thomas Lang: 'Fox News: All terror, all the time'
I was in Taiwan last week, and for some reason was not able to access bloggerpro, and watched CNN International which, like Fox, is all Terror all the time; CNN has become a grotesque joke
The Smirking Chimp
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Don Kraus & Sam Stein: 'Bolton's abscess appointment'
meanwhile Bush is ready to appoint an unconfirmable Thug to head the UN, what better representative for thuggish Bush-Cheney-Rove Gang?
The Smirking Chimp: "Don Kraus & Sam Stein: 'Bolton's abscess appointment'"
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TPaul Street: 'Bush, China, two deficits, and the ongoing decline of US hegemony'
Bush has chosen hardright conservative ideologue and corporate whore for the supreme court who is willing to do anything for corporations and conservative regimes
The Smirking Chimp: "Tom Engelhardt: 'A thief on the Court?'"
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Paul Street: 'Bush, China, two deficits, and the ongoing decline of US hegemony'
while Bush wrecks the US economy and polity with his disastrous military adventures, tax cuts for the rich, favors to corporate buddies and record deficits, China is on the move....
The Smirking Chimp: "Paul Street: 'Bush, China, two deficits, and the ongoing decline of US hegemony'"
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Eric Margolis: 'U.S.-run Baghdad regime can't last'
Bush's Iraq regime is too weak and unpopular to survive
The Smirking Chimp: "Eric Margolis: 'U.S.-run Baghdad regime can't last'"
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Linda McQuaig: 'Terror attacks are response to military actions'
more people are correctly coming to see that terror attacks are a response to US-UK military actions
The Smirking Chimp: "Linda McQuaig: 'Terror attacks are response to military actions'"
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Mayank Chhaya: 'Did Bush give media the middle finger?'
Is Baby Frat Boy Bush flipping the bird to the press again? see blogleft logo for earlier Bush Bird
The Smirking Chimp
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Obfuscating TreasonGate: GOP tries to make Wilson the issue
As usual, GOP slimes all critics, making the truth-speaking critic the Bad Guy
The Smirking Chimp
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The Huffington Post | The Blog
Arianna flots a theory we had earlier posted that Judy Miller might be part of the neocon Wilson-Plaume smear patrol, as she was part of their Iraqi WMD disinformation campaign
The Huffington Post | The Blog
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Not so fast
As Bush hurries to hand off the Iraq debacle the new Constitutional Committee in Iraq is seeking an extension on the U.S. made deadline.
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Saturday, July 30, 2005
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More on Roberts
Student to join teacher in the highest court in the land. Robert's, former clerk to justice Rehnquist, is steeped in the school of Reganism.
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Friday, July 29, 2005
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Reinterpreting civil rights
More details on Bush's supreme court nominee Roberts reveal reactionary views.
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Thursday, July 28, 2005
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Dissent from the Right?
Even Senator Bill Frist (not exactly a beacon of "liberal" sentiment) is advocating for the modifcation of Bush's absurd policy on stem cell research.
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Uncovering Roberts
Bush's nomination for the supreme court, John Roberts ,seems to be slipping by in the mainstream media unscathed. As some of his previous rulings are now beginning to emerge, his true reactionary beliefs are being revealed.
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Wednesday, July 27, 2005
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Texas Tea
As world oil supplies dwindle, ending the occupation in Iraq is highly unlikely. Bush's failures have secured one thing: profits for oil hungry markets and losses in human lives.
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Saturday, July 23, 2005
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Thom Hartmann: 'TreasonGate — What did Bush know, and when did he know it?'
Exactly the right questions! Bush and/or Cheney must be involved in this scandal, or Bush doesn't know what's going on under his nose
The Smirking Chimp
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CIA leak investigation turns to possible perjury, obstruction of justice
multiple ways to get Rove and Libbey and others
The Smirking Chimp
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Friday, July 22, 2005
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The Iran War Buildup
if It hits the fan on Rove-Cheney-TraitorGate, look for a big diversion
The Iran War Buildup
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Somebody is lying: Rove, Libby accounts in CIA case differ with those of reporters
Who's lying?
The Smirking Chimp
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Thursday, July 21, 2005
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Plame's Identity Marked As Secret
obviously, members of the Bush-Cheney Gang found out Valerie Plame-Wilson had a secret identity as CIA agent and decided to destroy her career to retaliate against her husband, a cowardly and traitorous lot...
Plame's Identity Marked As Secret
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Salon.com Politics Plame payback from the Post?
are the mainstream media finally turning on Bush-Rove?Salon.com Politics
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Tuesday, July 19, 2005
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Robert Parry: 'Rove-Bush conspiracy noose tightens'
Nothing new in mainstream media today on RoveGate, although smirkingChimp has a lot of articles and commentary collected, including Bob Parry's analysis=
The Smirking Chimp
See also an article how the link to Cheney's office deepens the scandal
http://www.smirkingchimp.com/print.php?sid=21988
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Monday, July 18, 2005
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Top aides reportedly set sights on Wilson — Rove and Cheney chief of staff were intent on discrediting CIA agent's husband, prosecutors have been told
This is the BIG STORY: Rove and Libbey were systematically out to destroy Joe Wilson and as collateral damage destroyed the career of his covert CIA agent wife; this codes the issue as TREASON and a NATIONAL SECURITY issue so the Repugs have to attack the attackers because they cannot defend their smears and dirty tricks on issues of national interest or security
The Smirking Chimp: "Top aides reportedly set sights on Wilson — Rove and Cheney chief of staff were intent on discrediting CIA agent's husband, prosecutors have been told"
Here's another good summary of state of TREASONGATE
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/linkset/2005/04/11/LI2005041100587.html
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Iraqis Stunned by the Violence of a Bombing - New York Times
everyday in Iraq is as bad as the London terrorist bombing day and some days are worse; it is striking how much global media coverage atrocities in Europe or the US get while the daily carnage in Iraq is just a blip; BUT in much of the world the horrors of Iraq are featured on the news which is what helps recruit so many suicide bombers; Bush has unleashed a deadly cycle of violence and peace will not return to the world until he is retired in Crawford Texas or sent to the International Criminal Court
Iraqis Stunned by the Violence of a Bombing - New York Times
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Reporter Says He First Learned of C.I.A. Operative From Rove - New York Times
The Rove TraitorGate story has legs dominating Sunday talk shows and weekly news magazines. The Republican are reduced to saying Rove is a "good man" who is being "smeared" and demand an apology from the Democratics. This is rich irony over the sleaziest operative in US politics who is a very, very Bad Man. Cheney's Chief of Staff Lewis Scooter Libbey is also fingered
Reporter Says He First Learned of C.I.A. Operative From Rove - New York Times
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Sunday, July 17, 2005
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Follow the Uranium - New York Times
Frank Rich gets it right: RoveGate is not about Joe and Valery but about Karl Rove's career of slander and infamy and the lies and deception about Iraq; it is a Pandora's Box that could unleash revelations of a panorama of Evil
Follow the Uranium - New York Times
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Saturday, July 16, 2005
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Rove-gate: Who Leaked to the Leakers?- by Justin Raimondo
here's a very interesting analysis that suggests Rove is the patsy of neocons who were out to discredit anyone who undermined their war plans and used Rove to do the leak to get at CIA factions who were also blocking their war plans, as well as to discredit Joe Wilson; if there is anyone more vile than Rove in the Bush White House it is Cheney and his minions so this analysis is plausible
Rove-gate: Who Leaked to the Leakers?- by Justin Raimondo
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Daniel Schorr: 'Rove leak is just part of larger scandal'
Daniel Schorr is right that Rove scandal is part of how US got into the Iraq morass, discrediting all of the war's criticis and relentlessly pursing a line that Iraq was major threat to US and that anyone who opposed this was a wimp or worse a traitor; this was and is consistently Rove's line
http://www.smirkingchimp.com/print.php?sid=21951
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Friday, July 15, 2005
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Beyond Rove: Special prosecutor said to be investigating Ari Fleischer, Scooter Libby and others; also probing possible post-leak coverup
more dirt on the Bush-Cheney-Rove Gang
The Smirking Chimp
John Dean thinks Rove is in big trouble
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Thursday, July 14, 2005
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Karl Rove on the Internet
The Smirking Chimp has a rich collection of articles on the Rove/TraitorGate story today, although the mainstream seems to have pulled back
http://www.smirkingchimp.com/
Salon also has several good stories
http://www.salon.com/
It's up to the Internet and blogosphere to keep this going, Rove was laughing yesterday, let's put a frown on his day
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Wednesday, July 13, 2005
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Tuesday, July 12, 2005
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Monday, July 11, 2005
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AlterNet: Is Karl Rove Screwed, or Not?
The most corrupt and scandalous political hitman in US history is finally nailed but the media are treating him with kid gloves; ABC and CBS barely touched the story yesterday and the Washington Post published a story today indicating that Rove did not finger Plaume; he will only be screwed if alternative media nail him so decisively that the mainstream will follow up
AlterNet: Is Karl Rove Screwed, or Not?
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Sunday, July 10, 2005
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Robert Furs: 'London attacks bring out the worst in Fox News'
Once again, Fox News descends into the gutter in their coverage of London terror attacks; this institution is a national disgrace
The Smirking Chimp
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David Corn: 'New explosive Rove revelation to come? Time to frog-march?'
David Corn thinks that Rove is the major leaker in the Valery Plame CIAgate and that Newsweek is releasing story today indicating this; sharpen the knives to take down the evil Rove
The Smirking Chimp
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Friday, July 08, 2005
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ZNet | Iraq | The Smash of Civilizations
Chambers Johnson on our current World Historical Mess, Smash-Time in the Global Village with Iraq at Ground Zero of Chaos
ZNet | Iraq | The Smash of Civilizations
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Salon.com News | "The time of revenge has come"
Juan Cole on London terror attacks blowback: "The time of revenge has come"
Blowback from Bush and Blair's incompetently pursued war on terror has hit London. When will the U.S. figure out how to fight smart?
- - - - - - - - - - - -
By Juan Cole
July 8, 2005 | Credit for the horrific bombings of the London Underground and a double-decker bus on Thursday morning was immediately taken on a radical Muslim Web site by a "secret group" of Qaida al-Jihad in Europe. By Thursday afternoon, as the casualty toll rose above 40 dead and 700 wounded, British Foreign Minister Jack Straw was saying, "It has the hallmarks of an al-Qaida-related attack." Although U.S. President George W. Bush maintains that al-Qaida strikes out at the industrialized democracies because of hatred for Western values, the statement said nothing of the sort. The attack, the terrorists proclaimed, was an act of sacred revenge for British "massacres" in "Afghanistan and Iraq," and a punishment of the United Kingdom for its "Zionism" (i.e., support of Israel). If they really are responsible, who is this group and what do they want?"
Salon.com News | "The time of revenge has come"
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Thursday, July 07, 2005
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All Eyes on Turd Blossom
If Karl Rove is perp-walked this will be a moment of joy; here's a summary from Salon of the story;
: " When Karl Rove was little known outside Texas political circles, he was fired from George H.W. Bush's 1992 reelection campaign for leaking information to syndicated columnist Robert Novak. According to newspaper reports at the time, Rove was terminated for passing information to Novak from a meeting of the president's chief advisors. Rove denied he was the leaker.
Today, with another Bush in office, a journalist is being jailed to protect a source that led Novak to name a CIA operative, Valerie Plame. There is fevered speculation that Novak's source was, once again, Karl Rove.
If Rove, George W. Bush's deputy chief of staff, knowingly revealed Plame's name, he could be charged with committing a felony. The same source that revealed the operative's name to Novak reportedly also spoke to two other journalists, Time magazine's Matthew Cooper and Judith Miller of the New York Times. Rove's attorney, Robert Luskin, confirmed to reporters on Saturday that Rove spoke with Cooper days prior to the publication of Novak's column in July 2003. But Luskin denied that Rove named Plame.
Miller was jailed on Wednesday for refusing to reveal her source, the latest step in a drawn-out investigation by federal special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald that has culminated in the most heated showdown between the media and the federal government since the Vietnam War. Time handed over Cooper's notes last Friday, and Cooper agreed on Wednesday to testify before the grand jury in order to avoid"
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Wednesday, July 06, 2005
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Ernest Partridge: 'Hinges of history'
here's an excellent analysis of how the Bush-Cheney regime could go down via scandal and crisis OR move toward fascism to save themselves
The Smirking Chimp: "Ernest Partridge: 'Hinges of history'"
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Mike Whitney: 'Good-bye to Sandra Day O'Connor, and good riddance'
Ditto Sandra Day O'Connor who while not always voting hardright has some very bad decisions, including the swing on 5-4 Bush Vs. Gore that gave us the Bush-Cheney Regime
The Smirking Chimp: "Mike Whitney: 'Good-bye to Sandra Day O'Connor, and good riddance'"
Here's a good analysis of what Bush Gang may have in mind for Supreme Court: corporate greed enforcers or even fascists
http://www.smirkingchimp.com/print.php?sid=21816
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Rosa Brooks: 'The Judy Miller media hug-fest'
Rosa Brooks is right: While one should always defend 1st amendment rights and confidential sources, Judith Miller is a slug who circulated Iraqi WMD propaganda for years and is bottom-feeder of corporate media
The Smirking Chimp: "Rosa Brooks: 'The Judy Miller media hug-fest'"
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Tuesday, July 05, 2005
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Lying in Politics: The Case of George W. Bush and Iraq
Here's draft of an article I'm working on over Bush and Lying
Lying in Politics: The Case of George W. Bush and Iraq
Douglas Kellner
“Political Language…is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.” George Orwell
The Downing Street Memos leaked by a high-level British official reveal that the Bush administration had decided on an Iraq war as early as summer 2002, that the British were worried about the legality of the war and lack of post-war planning in Washington, and that both governments sought to shape intelligence and policies that would provide legitimate grounds for the invasion and occupation of Iraq. The first memo published on May 1, 2005 in the conservative London Times cited a July 23, 2002, briefing in which a British official, generally identified as Sir Richard Dearlove, the had of M16, the British security services, reported on a meeting in Washington:
There was a perceptible shift in attitude. Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy. The NSC [i.e. U.S. National Security Council] had no patience with the UN route, and no enthusiasm for publishing material on the Iraqi regime's record. There was little discussion in Washington of the aftermath after military action.[1]
The citation from the Memo suggests that by July 2002, eight months before the bombing of Iraq officially started the Iraq war that the Bush administration had decided on war and that the British intelligence and political saw it as “inevitable.” Moreover, the Memo indicated that a war against Iraq could be justified “by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD” and that “intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy.” Moreover, initially, the Brits concluded that core members of the Bush administration had little use for a “UN route” and had done little planning for the aftermath of a war.
The Memo also indicated that Britain was concerned about the legality and justification of such a war and that Prime Minister Tony Blair “said that it would make a big difference politically and legally if Saddam refused to allow in the UN inspectors. Regime change and WMD were linked in the sense that it was the regime that was producing the WMD.... If the political context were right, people would support regime change. The two key issues were whether the military plan worked and whether we had the political strategy to give the military plan the space to work.”
The Memos thus suggest that the British devised a plan to give the Saddam Hussein regime an ultimatum to let in weapons inspection and that if he refused, this would constitute justification for the war. In retrospect, we know that the US and UK did get the UN to provide an ultimatum to Iraq, that Iraq allowed weapons inspectors in, that they did not find any WMD, and that the US and UK attached Iraq anyway. The Downing Street Memos suggest, however, that sectors of the Bush and Blair administrations used the UN as a pretext to carry out their war plans and that all of the pious declarations that they were seeking a peaceful solution to the Iraq weapons threat was a lie, and that all along the US and UK were planning for war against Iraq.
In my remarks here, I want to put the Downing Street Memo in the context of Bush administration propensity for pursuing a politics of lying. In the past, conservatives traditionally defended values of truth and integrity, while attacking dishonesty and lying. During the Clinton administration, conservative defenders of the value of truth like William Bennett, constantly attacked Bill Clinton for lying and dishonesty. Yet few, if any, conservatives have spoken up to criticize the Bush administration for its systematic policy of deception and lying.
As Paul Krugman has demonstrated in his New York Times columns and books (2001 and 2004), Bush administration economic policy has been based on “fuzzy math” and outright lying concerning deficit figures, about who would benefit from the giant tax cuts, and concerning the effects of the tax breaks for the rich on job production and social services. President Bush said in 2002 that his tax cut would generate 800,000 jobs and repeatedly claimed that “everyone knows” that tax cuts create jobs. Yet major economists took out newspaper ads saying that this simply was not true and following Bush’s initial statements another million jobs were lost, and unemployment and underemployment continue at near record levels into 2005.
Bush administration spokespeople also continue to lie about the extent of the federal deficit and its potential harmful effects. Bush and Cheney have repeatedly claimed that the Bush tax cuts constitute only 25% of the mushrooming federal deficit, while the White House’s own Office of Management and Budget shows that the tax cuts account for 39%. As Krugman and others have repeatedly shown, the projected record deficit will be much larger than current Bush administration figures that do not include sky rocketing expenses for U.S. programs in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Moreover, it is by now well known and documented that Bush’s policy of launching a preemptive strike on Iraq was based on deception and lies. Bush and others in his administration constantly made false claims about alleged Iraqi “weapons of mass destruction” and the threat that the Iraqis posed to the U.S. and the entire world. The failure to find such threatening weapons and media exposure of claims that U.S. and U.K. intelligence agencies were skeptical of these claims have led to critical scrutiny of the case for war offered by the U.S. and Britain. In the latter country, a major inquiry was carried out presided by Lord Hutton into government deception over Iraq, but it was interpreted by much of the public as a whitewash (the London Independent published the first page of their paper a blank white the day after the inquiry report was made public in protest).[2]
Robert Greenwald’s remarkable 2003 documentary Uncovered systematically demonstrates the lies and deception that characterized Bush administration discourse and policy over Iraq from the beginning. The documentary contrasts statements by members of the Bush administration including George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and Condoleeza Rice, with statements by former members of the US intelligence and political establishment demonstrating that Bush administration claims concerning alleged Iraqi “weapons of mass destruction” were utterly bogus. Former intelligence analysts dissect Colin Powell’s address to the United Nations claiming to document Iraqi possession of weapons of mass destruction and show in detail how key facts and statistics Powell appealed to were simply false, his satellite imagery pictures claiming to present Iraqi weapons were appallingly misinterpreted, and his major claims concerning the immediate threat of Iraqi weapons were utterly false in what has to be the nadir of US diplomatic argumentation before an international audience. The documentary also presents critics such as former Ambassador Joseph Wilson convincingly arguing that Bush administration claims concerning ties between Al Qaeda and the Iraqi regime are completely unproven, a position affirmed by the official 9/11 Report, while a variety of critics argue that the Iraq occupation has created new terrorist enemies for the US and has not made the US safer, as Bush administration officials continually claim.
In my books Grand Theft 2000 (2001), From 9/11 to Terror War: The Dangers of the Bush Legacy (2003), and Media Spectacle and the Crisis of Democracy (2005), I criticize “Bushspeak” as a mode of systematically engaging in the discourse of deception and lies. I document a wealth of Bush falsehoods in the 2000 and 2004 election campaign, the 36-Day Battle for the White House, fallacious claims about his economic policies, and other deception and lies on the economy, environment, energy policy, and foreign affairs. It has therefore been interesting to see best-selling books emerge by Al Franken with the title Lies (And the Lying Liars Who Tell Them) and by Joe Conason called Big Lies: The Right-Wing Propaganda Machine and How it Distorts the Truth, with another book by David Corn on The Lies of George W. Bush: Mastering the Politics of Deception demonstrating Bush administration mendacity. In addition, Web-sites like www.spinsanity.com expose lies from all sides of the political spectrum, while MoveON.org has a web-site www.misleader.org, Bob Somerby has a web-site www.dailyhowler.com that for years has been attacking Bush administration lies and duplicity, while www.smirkingchimp.com and www.Bushwatch.com for years have posited examples of Bush administration deception and lying.
From the beginning, the Bush administration has practiced the Goebels-Hitler strategy of the Big Lie, assuming that if you repeated a slogan or idea enough times believe would come to believe it, that words would become reality. For years, the Republican Propaganda Ministry insisted that Bush was a “compassionate conservative,” that his tax breaks would help everyone, that Iraq was a dangerous threat to US national security and that invasion was necessary, or that Bush’s plan to privatize social security would save it. Bushspeak involves continual repetition of simplistic slogans aimed to mobilize conservative support and without regard for truth.[3]
When the Bush administration decided to attack Iraq, they committed themselves to policies of lies and deceit. Several books make it clear that George W. Bush was highly interested in the overthrow of Saddam Hussein from the very beginning of his administration. Richard Clarke’s 2004 memoir Against All Enemies depicts Bush as obsessed with Saddam Hussein and Iraq from the beginning of his administration, a point confirmed by the Ron Suskind’s memoir of the White House experience of Bush’s fired Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill. Bob Woodward’s Plan of Attack (2004) cites Bush’s religious fundamentalism and belief that he was doing God’s will in invading Iraq. Woodward’s book also indicates that the Bush administration had started doctoring intelligence in August 2002, shortly after the Downing Street Memo. Woodward documents how Cheney, Rice, and Bush began hyping threats from Iraqi “weapons of mass destruction,” insinuated links with Iraq and Al Qaeda, and pressured U.S. intelligence to find documentation of Iraqi weapons and reasons to go to war against Iraq.[4]
The publication of the Downing Street Memo and other recent documents on 2002 British discussions of Bush administration policy to invade Iraq and the legal difficulties involved in British participation provides smoking guns that point to the extent and duplicity of Bush administration lying and possible war crimes charges. At the Nuremberg war crimes tribunal in 1946, Nazi leaders like Goering, von Ribbentrop, Jodl and Streicher were sentenced to death by hanging for "Crimes against Peace: namely, planning, preparation, initiation or waging of a war of aggression, or a war in violation of international treaties, agreements or assurances, or participation in a Common Plan or Conspiracy for the accomplishment of any of the foregoing."[5]
The Downing Street Memo and related documents leaked to the press in May and June 2005 reveal that the Bush administration planned, prepared, initiated and waged a war of aggression against Iraq in violation of international treaties. Just before the Iraq invasion of March 2003 Kofi Annan, head of the United States, declared that a US-British war against Iraq would be illegal,[6] and the Downing Street Memos indicate that high-level British legal authorities and politicians were deeply concerned about the war’s legality. Moreover, Nixon’s lawyer during the Watergate John Dean argues in Worse Than Watergate (2004: 155) that Bush administration lies about Iraq and specious “determination” to Congress concerning the need to take military action against Iraq constitutes an “impeachable offense.” Dean argues that the Congressional support for Bush to take military action against the Iraqi regime required a “determination” that all diplomacy had failed and that there was an imminent threat from Iraq that would require immediate military action and that Bush’s determination was utterly specious. Dean describes Bush’s “extraordinary document” as “accurately analogized to male bovine droppings” (2004: 148) and, against the backdrop of his intimate knowledge of Congressional impeachment actions against Nixon when he was the former president’s lawyer, argues that there are constitutional grounds for impeachment.
In addition, former federal prosecutor William Cox argues that Bush administration invasion of Iraq and use of military force to overthrow the Iraqi regime violated sections three and four of Article 2 of the United Nations Charter which stipulates that: “All members shall settle their international disputes by peaceful means in such a manner that international peace and security, and justice, are not endangered [and shall] refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state.”[7]
Shamefully, the mainstream U.S. corporate media ignored the Downing Street Memo for weeks and in response to fierce Internet and alternative media attacks on its suppression, the mainstream corporate media used figures like Dana Milibank and Michael Kinsey to downplay its significance, claim there was nothing much new in the memos, and defend the US corporate media’s ignoring of the Memos. This response in turn was savaged by bloggers and alternative media that made it clear once again that the US corporate media is too cowardly and conformist to take on Bush administration lies and that the survival of a politics of truth and speaking truth to power lies with the alternative media.[8]
There was, however, an important article in the Los Angeles Times by Michael Smith, the reporter who published the original memo in the London Times. Smith highlights how Bush and Blair planned to trap Hussein into refusing UN ultimatums to justify war and in addition planned to provoke him with increased air strikes in the so-called “no flight zone” in Iraq. In Smith’s words:
Although Blair and Bush still insist the decision to go to the UN was about averting war, one memo states that it was, in fact, about 'wrong-footing' Hussein into giving them a legal justification for war. British officials hoped the ultimatum could be framed in words that would be so unacceptable to Hussein that he would reject it outright. But they were far from certain this would work, so there was also a Plan B... Put simply, US aircraft patrolling the southern no-fly zone were dropping a lot more bombs in the hope of provoking a reaction that would give the allies an excuse to carry out a full-scale bombing campaign, an air war, the first stage of the conflict.[9]
In other words, not only were Bush and Blair lying when they said that they were going to the UN to avert war, but they were trying to provoke the Iraqi regime through ultimatums and an intense bombing campaign that started months before the official invasion. When Bush was confronted with the Memos by the press for the first time, with Tony Blair by his side on June 8, 2005, both Bush and Blair denied that they had decided on war in 2002 and Bush repeated the Big Lie that they had done everything possible to avoid war, insisting “Look both of us [him and Blair] didn’t want to use our military. Nobody wants to commit military into combat. It’s the last option.”
This response to the Downing Street Memo highlights both the mendacity and failure to take responsibility that characterizes Bushspeak and the entire Bush-Cheney regime for, as noted above, there is clear evidence that the Bush administration had planned an invasion of Iraq. Indeed, mendacity and lack of accountability are the defining features of Bushspeak and the Bush administration legacy. On December 14, 2004, George W. Bush gave the distinguished Medal of Freedom to three US officials who had miserably failed their country: CIA head George Tenet, whose agency failed to detect the imminent threats from Al Qaeda and then allowed the Bush-Cheney Gang to cherry-pick intelligence on alleged Iraqi “weapons of mass destruction,” and according to Bob Woodward (2004), told key Bush administration operatives that they had “slam-dunk” evidence of Iraqi possession of such weapons; Tommy Franks, US military head of the Afghanistan operation which by failing to put US troops on the ground allowed bin Laden, Mullah Omar and other key Taliban and Al Qaeda leaders to escape in Afghanistan, and whose botched plan for Iraq was evident from the looting and chaos at the very beginning of Iraq’s “liberation”; and Paul Bremer, head of the US occupying forces in Iraq who experts believed made one blunder after another, making the situation in Iraq worse by the week.
Being a high-level member of the Bush administration means never having to say you are sorry, to be able to dissemble and lie at will, and never to be held accountable. During his June 29, 2005 speech at Fort Bragg, where he attempted to defend his failing Iraq policy, Bush repeated the Big Lie that his invasion of Iraq was a response to 9/11 and an integral part of the “war on terrorism.” Bush repeated the mantras 9/11, Al Qaeda, war on terrorism, and Iraq countless times, as if these events were integrally interconnected. The 9/11 Commission Report (2004) concluded that there was no connection between Iraq and the 9/11 attacks, or the Saddam Hussein regime and Al Qaeda, but the Bush administration continues to make these rhetorical links on a regular basis. Obviously, the Bush administration has not been able to concoct a legitimate justification for their invasion of Iraq and, sadly, there has been little discussion of the issue in the mainstream media.
While it is still not clear exactly why the Bush administration invaded Iraq, there are a set of reasons quite different than the official legitimation. Whereas the explicit war aims were to shut down Iraq’s “weapons of mass destruction,” and thus enforce UN resolutions mandating that Iraq eliminate its weapons, there were many hidden agendas in the Bush administration offensive against Iraq. To be reelected, Bush needed a major victory and symbolic triumph over terrorism in order to deflect from the failings of his regime both domestically and in the realm of foreign policy. When asked in summer 2002 why the Bush administration was not more vigorously promoting the need for a war against Iraq, Bush’s Chief of Staff Andrew Card said that you do not introduce a new “product” in the summer. During Fall 2002, by contrast, the Bush administration began hyping the dangers of Iraq —- just before the November 2002 mid-term elections where the Republicans asserted that they were the firm national security party, ready to protect the country, while the Democrats, who were opposing an Iraq invasion, were said to be weak on defense.
Moreover, ideologues within the Bush administration wanted to legitimate a policy of preemptive strikes, and a successful attack on Iraq could inaugurate and normalize this policy. Some of the same unilateralists in the Bush administration envisage U.S. world hegemony, the elder Bush’s “New World Order,” with the United States as the reigning military power and world police (Kellner, 2003). Increased control of the world’s oil supplies provided a tempting prize for the former oil executives who maintain key roles in the Bush administration. Furthermore, key members of the neoconservative clique in the Bush administration were linked to Israel’s reactionary Likud party, which wanted to destroy Saddam Hussein’s regime because he was seen as a threat to Israel. Finally, one might note that George W. Bush’s desire to conclude his father’s unfinished business and simultaneously defeat evil to constitute himself as good helped drive Bush Junior to war against Iraq with the fervor of a religious crusade.
Complex events in history often have multiple causes and there were no doubt different agendas at work promoting the Bush administration to invade and occupy Iraq. But to sell the policy to the public the Bush-Cheney Gang had to provide reasons that would resonant and generate support. After 9/11, the Bush administration used fear to generate support for its hard rightwing domestic and foreign policies, and to gain support for Iraq they utilized a discourse of fear, evoking nuclear mushroom attacks, chemical and biological weapons attacks, and connections between the Hussein regime and Al Qaeda to attack the United States. Intelligence was “cherry-picked” and “stove-piped.”
Yet the Downing Street Memos disclosed that at least eight months before the war against Iraq began, the Bush administration was set on war, that the UN diplomatic campaign was a charade, and that the Bush and Blair administrations were seeking a rationale to sell the war to the public –- one that backfired when the alleged “weapons of mass destruction” were never found.
Now is the time for liberals, conservatives and those who believe in truth in politics to demand straight talk from the Bush administration and other politicians, and for the media and critics of the politics to lying to take the Bush administration to task for its Big Lies. As the history of recent totalitarian regimes demonstrates, systematic deception and lying rots the very fabric of a political society, and if U.S. democracy is to find new life and a vigorous future there must be public commitments to truth and public rejection of the politics of lying.
References
Clarke, Richard A. (2004) Against All Enemies (New York: Free Press.
Cox, William J. (2004) You’re Not Stupid! Get the Truth. A Brief on the Bush Presidency. Joshua Tree, Cal.: Progressive Press.
Dean, John (2004) Worse Than Watergate: The Secret Presidency of George W. Bush. Boston: Little, Brown and Company.
Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States. 2004. The 9/11 Commission Report. New York: Norton.
Kellner, Douglas (2001) Grand Theft 2000. Lanham, Md.: Rowman and Littlefield.
_________________ (2003) From 9/11 to Terror War: Dangers of the Bush Legacy. Lanham, Md.: Rowman and Littlefield.
_________________ (2005) Media Spectacle and the Crisis of Democracy. Boulder, Col.: Paradigm Press.
Krugman, Paul R. (2001) Fuzzy Math. The Essential Guide to the Bush Tax Plan. New York: Norton.
___________ (2004) The Great Unraveling: Losing Our Way in the New Century. New York: Norton.
Suskind, Ron (2004) The Price of Loyalty. George W. Bush, the White House, and the Education of Paul O’Neill. New York: Simon and Schuster.
Woodward, Bob (2004) Plan of Attack. New York: Simon and Schuster.
Notes
[1] On the context of the Memo and identity of the British official, see Mark Danner, “The Secret Way to War.” The New York Review of Books, June 9, 2005 at http://www.nybooks.com/articles/18034. The Danner article also contains the first Downing Street Memo, from which I am quoting here.
[2] On public response in Great Britain to the Hutton inquiry, see Alan Ryan, “Waiting for Gordon Brown,” New York Review of Books, June 23, 2005, at http://www.nybooks.com/articles/18078.
[3] On Bushspeak and the Big, Bold, and Brazen Lies that characterize the Bush administration, see Kellner 2005.
[4] For a detailed analysis of how Bob Woodward’s Plan of Attack sheds light on Bush administration Iraq policy in the light of the Downing Street memos, see the multi-part analysis by Bob Somerby archived at http://www.dailyhowler.com/archives-2005.shtml.
[5] See Article 6, Charter of the International Military Tribunal, August 8, 1945, http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/nuremberg/NurembergIndictments.html), cited in Dave Edwards, “The Downing Street Memo - Part 1” June 28, 2005 at http://www.zmag.org/content/print_article.cfm?itemID=8182§ionID=15.
[6] On the road to Iraq and debates over the Bush administration Iraq policy, see Kellner 2005, Chapter Three.
[7] Cited in Cox 2004: 153. Author and former Justice Department prosecutor William J. Cox lays out in detail the ways that the Bush administration Iraq invasion contravenes several articles of the United Nations Charter and has no legal justification, thus constituting an “illegal use of force” (2004: 153ff). Cox also documents Bush administration “illegal detention of prisoners” (154ff) and how by violating the norms of international law Bush could be subject to impeachment (157ff).
[8] For a series of detailed critiques of the mainstream media neglect of the Downing Street Memo, see the commentaries by Bob Somerby archived in http://www.dailyhowler.com/archives-2005.shtml and Eric Boehlert, “AP Dropped the Ball on the Downing Memo,” Salon, June 14, 2005 at http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2005/06/14/ap_memo/index.html.
[9] Michael Smith, “The real news in the Downing Street memos,” Los Angeles Times, June 23, 2005.
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Monday, July 04, 2005
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Journalists Say Threat of Subpoena Intensifies - New York Times
part of the reason that media has been soft on Bush administration is that it retaliates fiercely against critics and courts have been tough on journalists; all of this and more is contributing to the erosion of a free press and thus US democracy; Happy Fourth of July
Journalists Say Threat of Subpoena Intensifies - New York Times
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Saturday, July 02, 2005
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Billion$ Missing From Iraq Trust Fund Managed By U.S.
Billions scammed from Iraq by US grifters
Albion Monitor (frames)
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Friday, July 01, 2005
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