Even more reason why IWR vote disqualifies those who voted "YES"

[xkenx]

Now Dick Durbin has come out and publicly stated what Carl Levin has been saying privately---that ALL congresspeople had ALL the intelligence reports pre-IWR vote to know that Bushco's claims of WMD were bogus or unsubstantiated. I attended a conference in 2005 where Levin was asked why Dems. voted "YES" when he, Kennedy, Graham, Boxer, Durbin, and 18 other Dem. senators voted NO. He tried to cover for them but pretty much said they were substituting political calculation for courage. The aftermath horror show is still going on for our troops, untold innocent Iraqis, and our treasury, with Dems. lumped in with Rethugs for the war's inception. For any Dems who voted "YES" to claim that they were misled by the intelligence is a flat out lie. To claim "If I knew then what I know now, I wouldn't have voted for it" is more bullshit, because they knew then. That vote marked their lack of moral courage and speaks volumes about their characters. I cannot vote for someone so absent in character to take the chance that they will again be in a position to make the same mistake again. Make no mistake, the next president will be called to make major decisions in the face of uncertainty. The job is too important to trust to anyone who has proved their lack of courage.

[Selatius]

1. Substituting political calculus for courage is the soup du jour on Capitol Hill

If what Durbin said is true, a good number of Democrats simply voted with the Republicans because they wanted to hold onto their seats...at the expense of thousands of American soldiers.

[GreenArrow]

21. "thousands of American soldiers"

not to mention hundreds of thousands of Iraqis. Not to mention the destruction and disruption of Iraqi culture and history. Not to mention the countless widows and orphans and terminally maimed injured and damaged left behind. Not to mention the theft of that nation's resources, or the multi-generational impact of the envrionmental damage we've caused there. It's important to rememember our troops as well, but sadly, that's as far as most Americans are willing to look. They prefer not to realize that one country was at fault here, one country was the aggressor, one country has acted illegally, immorally and that that country is our own. For most of us, the Iraqis don't count, they are lesser peoples, they had it coming...after all, our strategic vital interests outweigh those of the people who actually live there, which they do essentially at our pleasure.

Those who voted for it knew exactly what they were doing, and all Durbin et al have done is give further credence to what many of us already saw/see knew/know; that this was a vote for empire, for power and wealth, for political expedience and personal ambition. Most of the world saw this, so much so that even the carrot and stick diplomacy that's usually used to forge "coalitions" wasn't viable. And it's ironic; even if Bush had somehow managed to get the UN and our "allies" fully on board, the war still would have been every bit as unjustified and unecessary.

[xkenx]

57. It's true--came from Carl Levin too.

[jcrew2001]

71. Red state politicians voted for the IWR because their

constiuents were pro-Bush.

Maybe we should just get rid of the Southern states - they are idiots anyways. Northeners are always right IMO.

Unfortunately, we can't win any elections.

[AtomicKitten]

2. I agree.

And it goes for all of them, although Edwards took it a step further.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=3261770&mesg_id=3261770

[pocoloco]

3. Business as usual.

[Big Pappa]

4. This is depressing

I like what many of these candidates stand for, but dammit I feel they would flush me down the toilet if it meant they could have 1 more day in power. Is integrity all gone.

[GreenArrow]

23. that's a nice irony there

You like what the candidates stand for, but you feel they'd flush you down the toilet to keep their power. Maybe they don't really stand for that much to begin with.

[xkenx]

77. Integrity is not gone; you just have to look for it in the right places.

[napi21]

5. I understand why you're upset about their vote, but think of this.

Right or wrong, there was a possibility that there were nerve gas and mustart gas etc weapons that they could use on neighboring states. Shrub never really defined WMD'S! I never personally believed Iraq had nukes, but I wasn't SURE he didn't have others that could be transported to the US. I watched all the nuts blow themselves up in Israel, Packistan, and elsewhere. I sure didn't wnat that HERE either! So call me stupid if you wish, but the fear is always of the unknown. Sure I think Shrub jumped the gun by attacking Iraq, and the whole admin was too stupid to do a little reading of history to understand what they were getting into. I doubt Srub cared about any of that, but I don'pt think there was any way for Congress or you & I to know his intent FOR SURE!


It's quite easy playing Monday morning quarterback AFTER we've all seen what happened, but think about it, and be fair. Didn't you have at least a bit of hesitation? Even if you believed Shrub was absolutely wrong...what IF he wasn't? I think THAT'S why a lot of our Dems voted to authorize the use of force. But there's another caveat that noone seems to be talking about. Shrub PROMIOSED he would ONLY use force if ALL other options were exausted! HE was the one who breached the agreement!!!!!

[Name removed]

6. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[karynnj]

8. You did not KNOW the truth

no one did. There was absolutely no way to prove a negative. Had Bush acted as he said he would, the inspectors would have verified that there were no weapons, the sanctions would have ended - which is what was going to happen. They could have setup some ongoing monitoring as the sanctions, which had themselves killed people, ended. You should be able to take the word of the President of the United States on an issue like peace and war.

Consider that a large number of the Senators who voted against the IWR voted for the Levin amendment. Just as Bush had a signing statement and ignored all the promises he made on the IWR, he would very likely have done so on had the Levin amendment been the passed bill - and once the war started everything would have been the same.

[venable]

11. absolutely correct

and well said.

[napi21]

9. OK, call me stupid, but I was also foolish enough to believe that

ANY person who was Prez of the US wouldn't arbitrairly attack another Country for personal reasons. See, I still had some trust in the Presidency then. I was wrong! I never thought anyone would be as wrong, evil, arrogant, and greedy as Shrub has turned out to be. Remember, he was only President for a few months at the time. I can only speak for me, but I used to respect the office of the Prez. I'm 63, and I've never seen ANYONE who occupied the WH behave so irresponsibly. I admit I was stupid at the time, for trusting someone who was our Prez. Unfortunately, I don't think I was alone.

[Alamom]

19. You make a good point.

We, my husband (62) and I, (54) never had (any) trust for this administration and thought we had seen most everything corrupt politicians could do. We thought "he" would do most anything, but there would be limits.
We knew they (his staff) were the most corrupt and evil ever to be in office, but to INVADE a country!!! We knew he wanted to do it.
We thought there would be more UN inspections and UN intervention in Iraq.

I guess after Vietnam, we just couldn't believe it could happen again.
We were going on past history, on past prezidents ......this one has done things (I think) that no one would or could have thought or predicted.

Nothing surprises us now.




edsp

[xkenx]

42. Understand your feelings. It's easy to be a bit naive about one's president.

Your avatar suggests that you are supporting HRC this time. My OP was about her as much as anyone, since I feel that she is the personification of the calculating politician (not smart principled calculation, but the calculation for personal gain or loss-avoidance). Based on her history, particularly re the IWR, her character and integrity (or lack thereof) have been well-established. The next president will have to make critical decisions; I want them made based on what's best for the American people.

[Tellurian]

52. Kick

[krkaufman]

50. "he was only pResident for a few months at the time"?

How about 21 months?

Bush had been in office for almost 2 years at the time of the Iraq resolution vote, and had already demonstrated an utter disregard for the rule of law, past treaties, diplomacy, reasoned debate, etc. Many people *knew*, yes, *knew*, Bush was itching for war and that his "willingness" to seek another UN resolution regarding Iraq was only because it could fit in with their planned timetable to invade in March of 2003. (Well, "Spring" of 2003, to be accurate.)

[xkenx]

78. But congresspeople are paid to be smart.

[venable]

10. you could not have known

you could assume, you could presume, you could feel confident in, you could even act upon your belief that there was no threat to anyone from Saddam. But you could not have known, and it is very easy to say so now.

Also, you are being rude to napi.

The outrage and righteousness of some here is really off-putting. There is so much holier-than-thou smugness, as if those who voted YES are bloodthirsty animals. They are reasonable, decent people who made a hard decision. Finally, Durbin is not the full truth of who knew what, when. Quit acting like he is. I know for a fact that there was no such universal, secret knowledge of the bogus nature of the claims.

I argued endlessly in the run-up to the war, and sent endless emails to the man I wanted to run for pres (Edwards) imploring him to vote NO, and to listen to Ritter. Do I think I'm better than Edwards or anyone else who voted YES? No, I'm not, and either are you.

[blue agave]

15. The truth was out there ...

I do not blame you for being decieved - 80% of the US population was with you. Hopefully we (collectively as a nation) will not be fooled again.

I do not attempt to be smug or second-guessing. I knew the imperial invasion to capture resources was wrong from the start, just as desert storm was wrong as well. I presented my co-workers with middle east oil pipeline maps, I called talk radio to spread the truth, I contacted my senators prior to each of these mistakes and pleaded with them to make a choice for peace instead of war. They canceled each other's votes. I would like to think that one voted their conscience, and one voted political correctness. But in reality I do not know.

I do know one thing though ... I am tired of hearing apologetic acquiescence to the neo-con scamming of our country, and I will speak out against it. We must all speak out against it.

[GreenArrow]

25. the truth was out there,

and for some of us, it's apparently as hard to see now as it was then.

[venable]

28. just to be clear

I, personally wasn't deceived. While I could not know for certain, I tended to believe Scott Ritter, who is the real unsung hero. He proclaimed loudly and unequivocally that there were no WMD. He was marginalized by the MSM then, and is forgotten now.

I tried to convince my favorite sitting Senator, and Presidential hopeful, Edwards to listen to Ritter. He listened to Tenet. I wish he hadn't, but I can understand that a reasonable person could choose to do that.

Let's also remember something which seems to have been forgotten. The IWR was a roadmap, a process. The process was aborted by Bush when he precipitously pulled the inspectors when they were not reporting what he wanted to hear. This seems to me an impeachable offense.

The biggest mistake was not in voting yes for a process, IMO, it was in trusting that this mean, avaricious little frat boy and his neo-con puppet masters would pay attention to the actual letter of the resolution.

[Carolina]

63. totally disagree

The IWR was a lie, a midterm election ploy using fear as a weapon against a paper tiger, the demonized Iraq.

IRAQ was not a threat, IRAQ was not behind 9/11. Those TWO HUGE FACTS were clear to anyone who did even the most cursory homework.

1) Decimated by the first Gulf War in 1991 and then further weakened by 12 years of sanctions, IRAQ was not an imminent threat so there was no need for a process, for a war resolution against that nation.

2) Of the 19 hijackers, 15 were Saudi Arabian (as is bin Laden) while the remaining 4 were from Yemen, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates (home of Dubai and now Halliburton). THERE WAS NOT AN IRAQI AMONG THEM and they met in Hamburg, Florida and other places in AMERICA. NOT. IN. IRAQ.

Even if it was a process, it was against the wrong people.
Even if it was a process, anyone with a single neuron KNEW Bush could care less about process, protocol, law, precedent ...

Bushco stole power in 2000 and then needed an excuse to pursue its PNAC wet dream. So Bush and crew let 9/11 happen despite ample warnings throughout August and the prior high alert at the July 2001 G-8 summit in Genoa when the Italian government closed the airspace around the meeting site because of threats that terrorists would fly planes into it.

Process, shmocess ... simply more excusitis for the 'yea' voters.

[Clark2008]

30. Yes, she could have known.

Geesch. Anyone with half a brain, Google and a modicum of Middle Eastern knowledge COULD have known. I was a friggin' housewife (as opposed to a handsomely-paid foreign policy expert) at the time and I knew!

I knew Saddam wasn't the threat he was being made out to be. I knew that Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. I knew this war wouldn't be "a cakewalk." Heck, I even knew that he most likely didn't have WMDs because of the restrictions placed on his country.

I knew all these things because I researched and paid attention to the people who WOULD know, not the people I wanted to believe.

Do I think I'm better than Edwards or anyone else who voted "yes?" Hell, yes I do! I was RIGHT. I LISTENED to Scott Ritter and Hans Blix and Wesley Clark and a host of Middle Eastern experts instead of political hacks. I didn't blow it off to "retain" a Senate seat or run for fucking president.

[beachmom]

47. Well, I didn't know. So I guess I just have "half a brain". Not everyone

is on the internet gathering facts. Some of us relied on the media and got screwed. You should be more compassionate to those of us who didn't know.

[Clark2008]

67. You're not in the senate, I don't believe.

If you were, you would have made it your business to know, I would hope.

I had more than a passing interest since my ex-husband, the father of my son, is Arabic and we have family over there.

Maybe you weren't all that involved at the time, but, surely, you would have been had you been trusted by the people who elected you to made good and sound positions.

[Carolina]

64. totally agree

Not only could she have known, she SHOULD have known ... they all should

BTW, I hope Clark runs, too! :hi:

[xkenx]

12. Wrong! You should read Scott Ritter's books.

Ritter is fmr. US Marine officer and Sr. UN weapons inspector in Iraq in the 1990s. He said that Iraq ceased making biologicals after Gulf war, and any not destroyed would have degraded over the years to become impotent. Inspections were invasive enough to confirm NOTHING found. Forensic testing could tell whether any WMD agent ever was in a barren building. Maybe Saddam had an intent but if he would have moved intent to action, we would have known. And Bush promised nothing.

[karynnj]

29. The problem was that some of what he said contradicted

what he said in the late 1990s after the inspectors were out.

The other thing was that even if you knew with certainty what he said was true, it said nothing of any possible effort on Saddam's part from 1998 on. Could Saddam have smuggled stuff from the former USSR? They had unsecured nuclear weapons that people like Senators Nunn and Lugar adviced buying up faster than we are. (Remember the first debate - Kerry responded nuclear proliferation as the greatest threat in the first debate and Bush ineptly tried to repeat Kerry's answer)

Read some of the speeches on the Iwr or Levin - no one ruled out possible WMD. I think nobody disagreed on the lead to get inspectors back in. Where the disagreement was was on what language to put into a resolution. Once Leiberman and Gephardt backed the IWR, the key amendment was Durbin's. This was a simple, straight forward amendment that put Bush's promise - that only WMD would be a cause to go to war explicitly into the bill. (Implicitly it was there as wording was removed that described other reasons.)

When we knew EXPLICITLY that Bush lied about why he invaded was after his 2005 swearing in, when people like Dr Rice and other administration people openly argued that they invaded to spread democracy, the theme of Bush's highly praised innaugral address. Very few papers or people noted this change in reason. (I heard the 2 MA Senators and Dean). There was no outrage from the media and none from the mainstream of the country.

[LWolf]

20. No, I did not have one moment's hesitation.

You see, I knew better.

I knew about PNAC, to begin with.

I knew better than to take GWB at his word; that didn't take too many brain cells.

I knew that the events on September 11th were being used to achieve a political goal that couldn't have been accomplished at that time without encouraging an epidemic of fear and nationalism.

Happily, there were some in Congress smart enough to be able to figure this out, as well.

Sadly, there were very few ethical enough to stand up for truth, and oppose the use of American fear to achieve personal and corporate goals through death and destruction.

[Jai4WKC08]

45. Yeah, he could have had gas or bio

I happen to think the Bushies actually thought he did. I was in Army intelligence back during the Clinton years and we thought he did as late as 1998.

They lied, of course, when they said they knew what he had and where it all was. And they lied when they implied that they had more classified intelligence than they did, that would prove what they claimed. And they lied when they made us all think Iraq was on the verge of getting nukes, and had close enough ties to al Qaeda to give them arms of any kind.

But I do think the Bushies honestly thought that they would find chemical weapons, probably biological too, and that no one would care if they weren't exactly of the type or in the locations that they had originally claimed.

But even if it's true that BushCo really thought Saddam had chemical or biological weapons, that was not the question. The question was, were they reason enough to go to war? Did Saddam have the delivery means to bomb the US? Was he an imminent threat to us? Was he an imminent threat to any of our allies in the region?

Do you have any idea how many nations in the world have gas and/or bio weapons? It's not a particularly sophisticated science, since mustard gas has been around since WWI, nerve agents since before WWII, and war by disease even longer than either. Should we go to war with them all? Can we afford to? Would it be right? Would the world agree? Would it make us safer in the long run?

Bush made a conscious decision to change US doctrine from the right to pre-emptive warfare -- a right to self-defense against an imminent threat -- to one of preventative warfare, the "right" to go to war against a country because it might become a threat at some time in the future.

And a Democratic Senate let him get away with it.

Even now, when people like Edwards apologize and say they made a mistake, they still dont' really understand the mistake that they made. They think they were wrong because Iraq didn't have WMD, or because the war went badly, or because American voters don't think it was such a good idea in the first place, but they don't get that it was the fundamental premise of what constitutes a legitimate reason to go to war in the first place. They'd do it all again -- with Iran, maybe, or some other third-world country that poses no real threat to us or our allies.

[Carolina]

48. "Right or wrong, there was a possibility that there were nerve gas.."

Of course Iraq had gasses of some sort! Reagan, Bush I and Rumsfeld supplied Saddam amply during the 8 year Iran-Iraq war. Saddam gassed the Kurds in 1988 with our government's blessing. So the possession of gas was NO SECRET.

Still Iraq did not pose an imminent threat to the US or itss neighbors, especially after the 1991 Gulf War and 12 subsequent years of sanctions.

Besides, by that logic look at North Korea. Kim Jong Il saber-rattled with his nukes and his fellow bully-boy * backed down. Also how can war against an enemy so powerful that it is an imminent threat simultaneously be a cake walk, which is what the warmongers promised? The former USSR was a formidable opponent that could be an imminent threat, but no pre-emptive war there, eh. IT MADE NO SENSE THEN and most of us here at DU could see it THEN. So this is no Monday morning quarterbacking or hindsight 20/20.

[krkaufman]

49. Right. But trusting that George W Bush would do the right thing ...

... and that he wouldn't simply do it his way, also demonstrates bad judgement. Bush had already routinely disregarded previous treaties, and the the truth, in general, so I'm none too impressed by the judgement or leadership of those who voted to authorize the use of force.

p.s. You neglected to mention that the Bush Admin sold the UN resolution, facilitated by the Iraq "use of force" resolution, on the basis that it did not imply use of force -- there was no "automaticity", as stated by Bush's UN Ambassador at the time, John Negroponte. So, yes, Bush violated trust and effectively broke the law, but many people had the judgement to foresee his doing so.

[riverdale]

69. How about this

There was no reason to pre-authorize a war for whatever reason Bush wanted except that it was an election year and they all wanted to be on board the ever-popular war bandwagon. They could have all just said, when the President thinks we have a need to go to war, then he can make his case before congress and we can decide whether to authorize or not based on the actual reasons. That is the way the Constitution says it should be done.

[EST]

7. After listening to Senator Durbin in at least two speeches which addressed these issues,

in the last ten days, or so, I got the distinct impression that he was saying that the folks on the intelligence committee had sufficient information to make such a decision, but those who were not on the committee, not so much. This was in the context that the administration and its hooties really considered the intelligence committee to consist only of republicans and repeatedly met with them and exchanged information with them to the exclusion of democrats.

Of course, Obama had no such assists and still managed to come down on the right side of history, but that's the reason Durbin is pushing that particular line, right now, so I'm not so sure it counts for as much.

[w4rma]

13. Hillary is by far the worst choice for President but Obama is not what he is selling himself as.

The Obama Illusion
Presidential ambitions from the start

• lent his support to the aptly named Hamilton Project, formed by corporate-neoliberal Citigroup chair Robert Rubin and “other Wall Street Democrats” to counter populist rebellion against corporatist tendencies within the Democratic Party
• lent his politically influential and financially rewarding assistance to neoconservative pro-war Senator Joe Lieberman
• supported other “mainstream Democrats” fighting antiwar progressives in primary races
• criticized efforts to enact filibuster proceedings against reactionary Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito.
• voted for a business-friendly “tort reform” bill that rolls back working peoples’ ability to obtain reasonable redress and compensation from misbehaving corporations
• oppose the introduction of single-payer national health insurance on the grounds that such a widely supported social-democratic change would lead to employment difficulties for workers in the private insurance industry
• expressed reservations about a universal health insurance plan recently enacted in Massachusetts, stating his preference for “voluntary” solutions over “government mandates.”
• voted to re-authorize the repressive PATRIOT Act
• voted for the appointment of the war criminal Condaleeza Rice to (of all things) Secretary of State
• opposed Senator Russ Feingold’s (D-WI) move to censure the Bush administration after the president was found to have illegally wiretapped U.S. citizens
• distanced himself from fellow Illinois Democratic Senator Dick Durbin’s forthright criticism of U.S. torture practices at Guantanamo
• refuses to foreswear the use of first-strike nuclear weapons against Iran
• makes a big point of respectfully listening to key parts of the right wing agenda even though that agenda is well outside majority sentiment
• joins victim-blaming Republicans in pointing to poor blacks’ “cultural” issues as the cause of concentrated black poverty
• he claims that blacks have joined the American “socioeconomic mainstream” even as median black household net worth falls to less than eight cents on the median white household dollar
• “If the Democrats don’t show a willingness to work with the president, I think they could be punished in ‘08”

http://zmagsite.zmag.org/Feb2007/street0207.html

Obama rallies state Democrats, throws support behind Lieberman
By Stephanie Reitz, Associated Press Writer | March 31, 2006
…
Lieberman, Connecticut's junior senator, is under fire from some liberal Democrats for his support of the Iraq War. He was key in booking Obama, who routinely receives more than 200 speaking invitations each week.
…
"The fact of the matter is, I know some in the party have differences with Joe. I'm going to go ahead and say it," Obama told the 1,700-plus party members who gathered in a ballroom at the Connecticut Convention Center for the $175-per-head fundraiser.

"I am absolutely certain Connecticut is going to have the good sense to send Joe Lieberman back to the U.S. Senate so he can continue to serve on our behalf," he said.
…
http://www.boston.com/news/local/connecticut/articles/2006/03/31/obama_rallies_state_democrats_throws_support_behind_lieberman

Obama Voted yes on free trade agreement with Oman.
http://www.ontheissues.org/2008/Barack_Obama_Free_Trade.htm

TPM Compare And Contrast: Hillary And Obama's Votes On Iraq
…
Of the total of 69 votes we compiled -- some significant, some not -- it turns out that the two differed on only one.
…
As you can see, Clinton and Obama have voted the opposite way on only one vote on our list: The confirmation of General George Casey to be Chief of Staff for the Army, held just this past February. Hillary voted against confirmation, while Obama voted to confirm.
…
http://electioncentral.tpmcafe.com/blog/electioncentral/2007/mar/29/comparison_of_hillary_and_obama_votes_on_iraq
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=3189244&mesg_id=3189244

Something smelled funny about Obama in how he mysteriously got so much corporate support so quickly. This is the tip of the iceberg. Obama is slick.

[rufus dog]

do not get your point

So you are telling us not to vote for Obama but vote for a guy who voted for the war and tried to argue not to admit it was a mistake during the 2004 campaign cycle. I hate to tell you, but I am a hard care liberal and I can not think of one candidate who is lower on my list.

I can not tell him apart from Romney.

[Adelante]

35. The point is not Obama - The point is diversion from Edwards

Look! Over THERE!! is a strategy, I guess, but an idiotic one. Yet the poster has pasted that hit piece into almost every single thread on this topic, sometimes multiple times. Pay no attention.

[Adelante]

44. This was in response to rufus dog

Somehow it went to the OP.

[xkenx]

36. deleted

[rufus dog]

do not get your point

So you are telling us not to vote for Obama but vote for a guy who voted for the war and tried to argue not to admit it was a mistake during the 2004 campaign cycle. I hate to tell you, but I am a hard care liberal and I can not think of one candidate who is lower on my list.

I can not tell him apart from Romney.

[rufus dog]

18. do not get your point

So you are telling us not to vote for Obama but vote for a guy who voted for the war and tried to argue not to admit it was a mistake during the 2004 campaign cycle. I hate to tell you, but I am a hard care liberal and I can not think of one candidate who is lower on my list.

I can not tell him apart from Romney.

[GreenArrow]

24. "I can not think of one candidate who is lower on my list"

He's essentially the Democratic verison of Romney, though not as inspid, not as unprincipled, not as vicious, but comprised nevertheless of the same infinitely lightwieght and plastic stuff. With both of them, it's all about packaging and presentation; the content, when examined closely, is somewhat lacking to say the least.

I'd have to add Biden at the bottom of my list, just slightly below the candidate at the bottom of yours. I'll vote for neither.

[illinoisprogressive]

27. Plastic empty people do not write 2 bestsellers or have the forsight on this war before hand

[GreenArrow]

33. the other poster wasn't talking about Obama

and niether was I. We were talking about a certain co-sponsor, op-ed writer, aye voter, and general cheerleader for the war -- at least up until recently, when the winds of public opinion changed.

[wyldwolf]

22. Nor is Edwards what he is selling himself as.

[Clark2008]

32. And neither is your boy.

Your guy voted for and CO-SPONSORED the damn IWR, despite knowing about Bush's motives (per Durbin). He helped write the PATRIOT Act. He supported NCLB. He helped banks enter the predatory-lending field and he didn't do squat for the poor he allegedly so-cares about now.

I think before you go off throwing stones at other candidates, you need to get your personal candidate's house in order - and apologizing for his ENTIRE record as senator ain't gonna cut it. He's my LAST choice - actually, he's no choice at all and I wouldn't vote for him as nominee - because of it.

BTW, I have no candidate and I don't necessarily disagree with what you wrote about Obama - but you can't really cast stones while supporting the guy who actually co-sponsored the IWR.

[MH1]

61. Shhhh... no one's supposed to know that Edwards cosponsored the IWR.

After all, he apologized for his vote, didn't he?

Oh, wait...

[xkenx]

62. Edwards is one of the reasons for my OP. I'm going to periodically

remind people about that vote and the character issues accompanying it. I hope someone sticks it to Hillary and Edwards at a town hall debate one of these days. If there is one near me, I'll be there.

[karynnj]

34. You have posted that list many times

I am not for Obama, though of those running, I lean to Dodd and Obama (if I have to pick one of the top three).

Most of those items are guilt by association. There are also many where very similar parallel things could be said about Edwards. If you believe all of them, you end up with none of the top three being anything but slick corporate supported candidates. (the second tier - Biden, Dodd and Richardson would likely be dismissed as easily.)

Edwards has things to explain as well. He ran as a pro-war, centrist Democrat in the pre primaries last time. That reflected the 4 years he had (at that time) been in the Senate. You saw how the media labelled Kerry, who has pretty consistent views on all issues over 35 years of public life. Edwards has shifted 180 degrees on many things in 4 years!

[rinsd]

41. How many times you gonna post that hit piece that has been debunked?

[oasis]

14. "disqualifies"

:rofl:

[Old and In the Way]

16. Did we ever find the anthrax killers?

Would there have been an Iraqi attack, maybe a dirty bomb on US soil, had the Democrats voted "no" on IWR? Maybe I'm a paranoid apologist for the Democratic Party, but I was wondering at that time what these bastards might do if Democrats had voted en mass against the IWR. How would our mainstream media frame such an attack? How would they frame the Democrats? Remember, we hadn't even gotten a 9/11 investigation by that point. And this administration was giving very specific, graphic warnings of gathering threats, mushroom clouds, drones launching off the coasts, etc.

Given what I see this Republican Party doing today, I have no doubts that they'd have facilitated another 'event' to completely neutralize the Democratic opposition and still get their war underway. They've sacrificed 3000 American soldiers on a completely elective war...would another attack killing a few hundred more Americans have really bothered them? I know no one in Congress would ever use this as a public rationale, but I wonder if that didn't enter the political calculation on this vote.

[Vickers]

17. "they were substituting political calculation for courage"

Best description of that time I've seen yet.

[illinoisprogressive]

26. Everyone needs to be honest and come clean completely about this whole thing.

[Adelante]

31. It's not that simple, not really

There was a difference in the intelligence examined by the Intelligence Committee and the declassified version, which had been sanitized. (This is the BIG deal.) The Intelligence Committee met privately with Tenet and others of the intelligence community and discussed (to put it politely) the full version. The Senate at large didn't have that opportunity. If they relied on the summary version of the NIE, they would have had what Graham called a compelliing case for war.

However, they did not have to rely only on that, because the Intelligence Committee had set up the full NIE in a locked room and urged the Senators and Representatives to go and read it before the vote. He even told them that if they did not do so they would have blood on their hands. Only six Senators and three Representatives that I know of actually went to that room and read the NIE. One was Senator Byrd, but I don't know who else. So you could say they were remiss in not reading the full NIE, if they didn't, but we don't know who didn't.

And there were other avenues of information and intel besides the NIE going on from various experts. And Graham, Durbin and Levin were bending themselves into pretzels trying to impress on the Senate, without committing treason, that the evidence was not there. And then there were those who voted strategically with good will for granting leverage. I don't think every IWR YES vote is equal in intention, although let's face it, the tragic outcome of this vote outweighs the best intentions.

As far as the 2008 candidates go, the only thing I know of Hillary saying, when asked if she had read the full NIE, is that she was "fully briefed." This is not good enough. Either she read it or she didn't read it. Edwards is in a much worse position, because he not only voted YES on the IWR, he co-sponsored it, and he did have the intelligence, because he was on the Intelligence Committee.

The Intelligence Committee is who ordered the NIE in the first place. It was delivered to the Intelligence Committee. It was in the hands of the Intelligence Committee and examined and found to not support the administration's case for war. It was the Intelligence Committee who saw to it that other Senators had access if they wanted it.

It was the Intelligence Committee who demanded a declassified version fit for public consumption, which would have edited out of it top secret bits, but would still be the same NIE. What came back was a completely rewritten document one quarter the size of the original NIE and without the qualifying statements and doubts of the intelligence community. If any Senators voted based on this alone, they were idiots, and as I said, there was more going on than this NIE, so that is not the case. But this new NIE is the basis for claiming the Congress was misled by the administration on intelligence.

But it's important to remember that the Intelligence Committee was not misled in the intel. They had private hearings with witnesses and they questioned everything and they got the real intelligence, not the sanitized version. The Intelligence Committee knew what they were hearing inside their top secret chamber did not match what the public was being told. The Intelligence Committee has spent the years since trying to get that information out and the Republicans have spent those years covering it up. Tenet is scheduled to testify before the House Intelligence Committee next month and the Senate Intelligence Committee is moving toward releasing the suppressed parts of Phase II of the prewar intelligence report.

There was a high crime and there was a coverup, and it's time for the bastards to pay for what they've done. If what is revealed reflects poorly on someone running for the Democratic nomination, so sorry. The American people deserve the truth on this before they vote in the next election.

I've said since this primary started I will not vote for any candidate who voted YES on the IWR, so I'm not disagreeing with your main point, xkenx, but there is a difference in what a member of the Intelligence Committee knew and was responsible for and what a non-member of the Intelligence Committee knew and was responsible for. That goes quadruple for a presidential candidate.

[xkenx]

37. Thanks, WesDem, for amplifying my OP so clearly.

I do think it was almost that simple, though. Even those not on the Intel. committee had access to the full intel. So they either knew the whole bogus story and many voted "YES" anyway, or they didn't bother to check out the full intel (if there were too many pages for their little brains to read, that's what they have staffs for) and voted "YES"----either way a tragic (and unforgivable) character flaw IMO.

[Adelante]

38. No argument

"a tragic (and unforgivable) character flaw"

I don't forgive.

[Cameron27]

39. It's also impossible

for anyone on the Intelligence Committee to claim that they didn't understand or couldn't predict what Bush would do with their yes votes for the IWR.

No one on the committee could have looked at the cooked intel, skewered to damn Iraq with a false association to 911 and not know where this was leading.

No one on the committee could have looked at the inflated accuasations that Saddam had nuclear WMD with contrary evidence right in their hands and not understand why the administration was pushing it.

[krkaufman]

51. "we don't know who didn't" ... read the full NIE

Hmmm... Could someone file a Freedom of Information Act request to get the logs?

[Cameron27]

53. That's an incredibly excellent idea!

[Gregorian]

40. Imminent.

Imminent he was not.

That's all I needed to know. They knew it too. Yes, there are many people here who are much more well read than me. I didn't even know that PNAC existed until 2003.

I think I have a notion as to what those people in Congress are all about. They have their gyms, their fantastic lunch room, their posh offices, free medical health care of the highest standard. The average net value of a member of Congress is $9 million.

These people are not concerned. They already have it made. Only the most honest and vigilant really care.

We know Feinstein's family profited from the war. What else is there to say?


Imminent. Even I knew.

[xkenx]

43. You're exactly right about imminent. Saddam's capabilities were even

degraded from what he could do before the Gulf War. As noted in Scott Ritter's book, the ISRAELI security people downgraded Iraq's threat to Israel from #2or3 in the early 1990s to #7 by the year 2000. Show you how much even Israel was worried, and they're practically next door.

[beachmom]

46. And what about later votes? Sorry, but it is a big mistake to judge

candidates on ONE vote which occurred in a certain period of time while discounting all other votes. You have also forgotten that most Americans (including myself) thought there were WMD in Iraq. So your sanctimonious attitude is an insult to the majority of Americans who thought U.N. weapons inspectors should go into Iraq with the threat of force (which is what the IWR called for).

Oh, and unless you are planning on supporting Kuccinich, NOBODY meets your standard. All the "heroes" were OUT OF POWER. There is NOT ONE viable Democratic candidate running in '08 who voted NO to the IWR. That is very telling and shows where Democrats were in October 2002, only one year after 9/11.

This endless IWR conversation is pointless, when we should be focusing on ALL PAST ACTIONS of the candidates (not just selective ones), their biography, and their campaign platform.

[xkenx]

54. Sorry, I'll disagree and restate the OP

[bunnies]

55. Respectfully, Voting to authorize the use of force against another country...

is a vote that should be held to the highest scrutiny. Dont you think? Sure it was ONE vote. But it was ONE vote that cost us hundreds of billions of dollars, not to mention a hundred plus thousand human lives, and our country's reputation in the eyes of the world. So IMHO, you could add up all the "other votes" together and it would even come close to equaling the importance of this one.

Also, you seem to imply that it mattered what the majority of Americans thought as far as whether there were WMD or not. Come on now. It wasnt the majority of Americans that gave bush a blank check to go to war. And it wasnt our JOB to do the research and make an informed decision. It didnt matter what the people thought then... any more than it matters now. Government does whateverthehell it wants anyway.

The war with Iraq was inevitable from the moment bush jr. took office. The PNAC was kind enough to give us the heads up long ago. And I'm not pointing the finger at the public for what they knew or didnt know. But our Congress sure as hell should have known better.

[xkenx]

56. Exactly!

[Carolina]

68. Welcome to DU

and you are absolutely right. No one, R or D, has an excuse or other cover from the crime committed by voting 'yea' for IWR. On 10/7/2002, Robert Byrd warned the world in the following speech (excerpted), and Abe Lincoln, over 100 years ago before him) warned likewise about pre-emptive war and executive power (see last paragraph)!
--------

"The newly bellicose mood that permeates this White House is unfortunate, all the moreso because it is clearly motivated by campaign politics. Republicans are already running attack ads against Democrats on Iraq. Democrats favor fast approval of a resolution so they can change the subject to domestic economic problems... Before risking the lives of American troops, all members of Congress --Democrats and Republicans alike -- must overcome the siren song of political polls and focus strictly on the merits, not the politics, of this most serious issue."

"We are rushing into war without fully discussing why, without thoroughly considering the consequences, or without making any attempt to explore what steps we might take to avert conflict. The resolution before us today is not only a product of haste; it is also a product of presidential hubris. This resolution is breathtaking in its scope. It redefines the nature of defense, and reinterprets the Constitution to suit the will of the Executive Branch. It would give the President blanket authority to launch a unilateral preemptive attack on a sovereign nation that is perceived to be a threat to the United States...

--- snip ---

"Representative Abraham Lincoln ... stated: ‘Allow the President to invade a neighboring nation whenever he shall deem it necessary to repel an invasion, and you allow him to do so whenever he may choose to say he deems it necessary for such purpose ... you allow him to make war at pleasure... The provision of the Constitution giving the war-making power to Congress, was dictated ... by the following reasons: Kings had always been involving and impoverishing their people in wars, pretending generally, if not always, that the good of the people was the object. This, our Convention understood to be the most oppressive of all Kingly oppressions; and they resolved to so frame the Constitution that no one man should hold the power of bringing this oppression upon us. But your view destroys the whole matter, and places our President where kings have always stood.'"


http://www.thenation.com/blogs/thebeat?pid=113

In short: an unnecessary resolution promoting an unnecessary war about which members of Congress cannot plead ignorance. They abandoned their Constitutionally-mandated responsibilities and enabled the death, destruction, chaos, instability, debt and ill will that this war has wrought.


:hi:
PS: I'm for Clark, too (edited to add this postscript).

[xkenx]

73. Abe Lincoln's words were 150 years old and could have been spoken today.

The Constitution, now being trashed by Bushco, is still a pretty good document.

[sandnsea]

58. Exactly Why Bush Gets Away With WAR LIES

Nobody should wonder why he isn't being impeached anymore.

[xkenx]

59. Gutless Dems.+Kool Aid Rethugs = Our leadership. PTUI!

[sandnsea]

60. If everyone had the same intelligence

Then no lies were told. Duh.

[xkenx]

65. Yeah, Dem. enablers

[Trajan]

66. I can assure you ....

Someone who voted FOR IWR will either win the nomination, or will be damned close ....

The only congressperson who did not vote for it is Obama, and if he wins the nomination, he has my full and absolute support ....

But, as righteous as you deem yourself now; can we depend on YOUR support come Nov 2008 if a Democrat who voted for IWR wins the eventual nomination ?

As angry as I am about what happened then: we have to live forward to the future, and learn from the past ..... I wont purposely hamstring my self, my family, my friends, my coworkers, and my fellow citizens with another GOP administration because Im all dogmatically righteous about one singular vote issued in a poisonous and politically charged moment ....

I WILL support the Democratic Party nominee, even if they voted yes on the IWR ....

If you intend to vote for a Democrat nominee who voted YES on IWR over any other republican nominee, then what is the point of this thread ? ....

If you choose to NOT support that Democratic nominee then ..... well; then your position is problematic .... morally righteous; yes .... but hardly favorable for your fellow citizens ....

[xkenx]

70. The OP is for the Dem. primaries, obviously.

All the Rethugs went down the line with Bush. If we happen to nominate someone who voted for IWR, I will support and vote Dem.--lots better than another Rpeublican. And I am praying and expecting that Wes Clark will run. His voice has been a powerful one opposing the Iraq misadventure from the beginning.

[Lord Helmet]

72. It's a good guideline for judging character.

[Jacobin]

74. Agreed. It was an enormous blunder morally, politically and

has led to the disaster we knew it would be.

Anyone who voted for it is, in my book, disqualified from holding high office, and particularly the presidency.

With 280million people in the US, there are bound to be other adults who can run for office and govern this country.

[FrenchieCat]

75. Aye....sound judgment is a key qualification of such an office,

although after 8 years of Bush, I can see why our expectations as to what qualifies for a leader as been significantly reduced to simply "not Bush or a Republican". I, for one, will continue to hold out for a higher standard of judgment, and stop defining leaders as those with 20/20 standing up recently on something they should have always been standing for. As far as those who say that this years line-up of Dem candidates is so splendid; I don't quite see it that way...although it is better than the GOP line up, which gives me very little solace from where I sit.

[xkenx]

76. Right! Why should we have to settle?

Why should we have to make excuses for cowards who just happen to be Democrats? By contrast, I'm posting below some comments about Wes Clark on dKos after his speech the other day at Johns Hopkins. This is what a leader with principles, integrity and courage sounds like.Robert Guttman who introduced General Clark at Johns Hopkins SAIS was also moved by Clark's speech and wrote a piece about it in The Huffington Post:
"General Wesley Clark Makes Sense: Should He Run For President?"
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...

I don't know if Wes Clark will run in 2008.

I do know that if we had the opportunity to have the kind of principled leadership that Wes Clark stands for we'd have the opportunity to feel good about ourselves again.

Tags: Joe Rothstein, Wesley Clark, Iraq (all tags)

Well, that woke me up! (2+ / 0-)

My morning Coffee was no where nearly as strong as this statement. Thanks.

Attn: James Nicholson is still Sec. of VA. There is no excuse for that. Thankyouverymuch

by llbear on Mon May 21, 2007 at 07:53:27 AM PDT


It would be difficult to overstate the significance of this speech. This is the closest that any viable, modern potential Democratic presidential candidate has come to conjuring Chomsky.

The eloquence of this speech is masterful. It takes Progressive, forward-thinking critique of America and presents it as mainstream and wholly digestable.

In the hands of any Democrat who didn't also happen to be one of the most highly decorated heroes in American history, this would be written off by the Right as moonbat radicalism, and the candidate would be easily marginalized. But in the hands of Clark, it comes off as it should- as brilliant academic criticism that goes down like sugar. To get away with Progressivism of this degree, you have to have earned an enormous credibility to do so- the kind of credibility that only comes with a lifetime of service and sacrifice and intellectual pursuit.

None of our current three frontrunners could get away with issuing such incisive critiques of America. None of them would dare. And in this, we see the definition of the truest leader.

The greatest leader we can have is the one who present our Progressive vision most forcefully. And Wes Clark- because of his unassailable patriotism, valor, and service to this nation- has an unmatched credibility to deliver our Progressive vision in the most forceful and maximal manner. He simply has the credibility and stature to get away with taking it farther.

This speech is simply brilliant critique. It's the sort of thing that we expect to hear from the Zinns and Chomskys of the world, but that most of us had given up hope of ever hearing from a potential presidential candidate.

If there was any doubt who the most Progressive potential candidate is, this puts an end to any intellectually honest debate. This speech is nothing short of radical by presidential candidate standards.

If we want the person who can advance Progressivism farther than any other, there is now no doubt that Wes Clark is our guy.