Memogate Ground-swell

[Nbadan]

British Documents Stir Protest in United States
By John Daniszewski, Times Staff Writer



LONDON -- Reports in the British media this month based on documents indicating that President Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair had conditionally agreed by July 2002 to invade Iraq appear to have blown over quickly in Britain. But in the United States, where the reports at first received scant attention, there has been a growing groundswell of indignation among critics of the Bush White House, who say the documents help prove the leaders made a secret decision to oust Saddam Hussein nearly a year before launching their attack, shaped intelligence to that aim, and never seriously intended to avert the war through diplomacy.

The documents, obtained by Michael Smith, a defense specialist writing for the Sunday Times of London, include minutes of a July 23, 2002, meeting of Blair and his intelligence and military chiefs, a briefing paper for that meeting, and a Foreign Office legal opinion prepared before the summit of Blair and Bush in Crawford, Texas, on April 6-7, 2002.

The picture that emerges from the documents is of a British government convinced of the United States wanting to go to war against Saddam Hussein and Blair, agreeing, subject to several specific conditions.

Since Smith's report was published May 1, Blair's Downing St. office has not disputed the papers' authenticity. A Blair spokesman asked about them Wednesday said the memo published May 1 added nothing of significance to the much-investigated record of the lead-up to the war.

"At the end of the day, nobody pushed the diplomatic route harder than the British government. ... So the circumstances of this July discussion very quickly became out of date," said the spokesman....

LA Times (http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-memogate12may12,0,1760579.story?coll=la-home-headlines)

It's no wonder W refused to be under oath when he testified before the 911 Commission. However, Isn't a President lying to the people in a State of the Union address still grounds for impeachment? Where is congress on this?

[Nbadan]

Tha ramifications of this memo are appalling...


"The underlying events that produced this (UK) election result provide a harsh, cautionary and unsettling lesson not only for Blair. Prime ministers to come will take the story of Blair's embrace of a powerful ally's mendacity and Blair's subsequent loss of trust as a warning. Future American presidents will be regarded with underlying suspicion far into the future. By chastening Blair, the British voters have applied the only brake they have on Bush's foreign policy. But the damage done to the US-UK relationship could have incalculable long-term negative consequences for the world.

· Sidney Blumenthal is former senior adviser to President Clinton and author of The Clinton Wars"

Politics.Guardian.uk (http://politics.guardian.co.uk/labour/comment/0,9236,1482046,00.html)

[Nbadan]

Where's The Media?

The media have been all over this story; it's gone round the world. The question is, rather, where are the readers? The documents were leaked around April 25, The New York Times and The Village Voice reported on it on the 28th of April.

What people are really asking is why these stories haven't been big in the US mainstream media? This is the problem with Americanism (or Empirism): forgetting that it's a big, big world out there. America is not, I'm afraid, the center of the universe. This story is HUGE in Britain, India, Italy, Pakistan, Australia, New Zealand, Germany, Holland, and South Africa And it is HUGE in Occupied Iraq.

When asking, "Where's the Media?" I think its important to remember that you, the reader ARE the media. Whether or not you "seize the day," YOU ARE THE MEDIA. Your opinion matters; you MAKE the news. The media does nothing more than give the people what they want. That's what sells newspapers, and that's what gets ratings.... but you already know this, right? "Who controls the media, controls the fates." Well, that means YOU! If you can find the news and report on it, if you can think things through for yourself and write a letter to the editor, if you can decide on these issues and write to your Representatives... YOU ARE THE MEDIA. And as Congressman Conyers has pointed out, your letters make more of a difference than you'll ever know.

The International Point of View

One of the fascinating aspects of this story of the Downing Street minutes, and the Goldsmith memo is that Americans will have to go to the British and international press to get news about the Bush administration and its illegal horrific war. It's amazing what a broader point of view can do for one's political health.

These documents were released in the buildup towards the British elections in the hopes that Blair would not get in again. Well, not to fear... even though he and his party have been elected again, the illegal Iraq war has become his legacy to deal with. The anti-war movement is SIGNIFICANTLY stronger in the UK than in the US.

Since the UK is a member of the International Criminal Court, there are a lot of members of government who are "sweating it," so to speak, including their former Chief of Defence Staff, Admiral Boyce. Boyce was never shown Goldsmith’s more equivocal advice to Blair of March 7, 2003, and says today ministers failed to give him protection from prosecution at the International Criminal Court. “I have always been troubled by the ICC,” he says, adding that if British servicemen are put on trial, ministers should be “brought into the frame as well”. Asked if that should include Blair and Goldsmith, he tells The Observer: “Too bloody right.” The day of the election the families of 10 soldiers in Iraq who were killed in action, brought charges of war crimes against Tony Blair, along with several anti-war organizations. The thing is, these cases have merit... and they will be heard.

Old News?

Everyone knows that this war is stinking illegal, and has known that for years... so why is this newsworthy? Because it's the first material evidence that diplomacy was NEVER an option. That Bush lied to Congress, that intelligence was fabricated to fit the policy, that the deal between the US and the UK to go to war was struck in April 2002, and that there was nothing to stop it.

Although Blair wanted to get that second resolution to 1441 from the Security Council just to "make it legal," he took his country to war, knowing it was illegal. Even moreso, the US and UK were so determined to go to war, although they knew it was illegal and unwarranted, they would even create the conditions for war by provoking Hussein by using UN weapons inspectors.

Why are these British documents important?

Because they are incontrovertible documentary evidence of all the above. All these things have been known before, but never have we had evidence of this calibre that the facts were fixed around the unstoppable pre-emptive war against Iraq. And, they are proof that George Bush lied to Congress and committed impeachable offenses. These documents are fuel for the impeachment fire that's going to burn hot for a long long time! At least long enough to get the job done.

Why Doesn't Congress DO Something?

Imagine you are a member of Congress. Now, pretend you are a Republican. OK, a moderate Republican. And you read this, from a British news source:

"...The invasion's legality may not be such a big deal for Americans since Bush got his administration and the US military virtually off the hook by opting out of the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague, and bribing and bamboozling smaller countries to sign up to bilateral agreements--whereby Americans would not be prosecuted for war crimes. Further, Congress was persuaded to give the President special powers...." -- Linda Heard, British specialist writer on the Middle East, writing from Cairo, May 3, 2005

The powers that Congress was persuaded to give to President Bush was the power of Congress itself!! To make informed (that is access to REAL intelligence) decisions, to declare war, to rule on the treatment of captives... Only Congress can do this.

I guarantee you, there is no one more angry and insulted by the revelations in these leaked documents than Congress and the House of Representatives, and that goes for BOTH sides of the aisle.

The Bush Legacy

During this administration, the Special Powers usurped by the Executive Branch have been those of the Legislative and Judicial Branches. And the horror of it is, just as there is and has been no exit strategy for the Iraq war, there is no exit strategy for what the American government has become under the reign of George W. Bush.

It is the monarchy we fled in order to begin a new nation.... Empire now with a self-made king... there is no where to flee. All that is left is "unitary" domination.

Impeachment: Towards the Reinstitution of a democratic Constitutional Republic

Enter onto this bleak stage... John Bonifaz, Francis A. Boyle, Benjamin Ferencz, Congressman John Conyers, Senator Barbara Boxer, Senator Patrick Leahy , Senator Robert Byrd, Congressman Jesse Jackson, Jr., Congressman Dennis Kuchinich, Senator Henry Waxman....

The tide has turned for the Iraq war. And the tide has turned for this Administration. But the world we are to inherit is not so clear yet. During the Nixon years it was John Dean who said, "There is a cancer on the Presidency." But now it is our whole form of government that has reached a critical mass.

If the United States is a democratic Constitutional republic, then there is no question that impeachment is the proper course of action. Anyone who says otherwise has chosen the serf's role.

Daily Kos (http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/5/8/203344/3240)

[Clandestino]

will you ever answer why you hate the u.s.? or why you still live here? which country do you think is better than the u.s. and why?

[Nbadan]

will you ever answer why you hate the u.s.? or why you still live here? which country do you think is better than the u.s. and why?

I suggest you read up on your American history. Especially the relationship between Thomas Jefferson and John Adams during the founding of our union. I think you will find this very informative.

[Clandestino]

why don't you answer the questions?

[Nbadan]

why don't you answer the questions?

It's an absurd question. Do your homework.

[Clandestino]

nice cop out

[exstatic]

Despising Bushco <> hating the US, no matter how many GOP spin-meisters say so.

[Clandestino]

hating bush is one thing. saying that u.s. military is killing innocent civilians and then staging the scene to look like they were being attacked is another.