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 do ents 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 do ents 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 do ents important?
Because they are incontrovertible do entary 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 do ents 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 do ents 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 Reins ution of a democratic Cons utional 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 Cons utional republic, then there is no question that impeachment is the proper course of action. Anyone who says otherwise has chosen the serf's role.
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