Excellent Knight Ridder wire story on the DSM

[whometense]

And even better, it's running in papers like the Kansas City Star and the The memo's reference to "fixed" intelligence is noteworthy. It's not a new issue. It has long been clear that Bush's depiction of Saddam as a grave menace was overstated. Among many examples: Bush said, on Oct. 7, 2002, that Saddam intended to use unmanned aerial vehicles "for missions targeting the United States," a distance of 6,000 miles. It later turned out that the UAVs had a range of 300 miles.

But the Bush camp is working hard to deny the memo's fixed-intelligence passage - a sign that the White House is sensitive about the issue. Last weekend, GOP chairman Mehlman stated: "That (memo) has been discredited. Whether it's the 9/11 commission, whether it's the Senate, whoever's looked at this has said there was no effort (by Bush's war planners) to change the intelligence at all."

Mehlman's claim is undercut by the facts.

The Sept. 11 commission never looked at the administration's behavior; commission vice chairman Lee Hamilton said last year. "(Under the law) we were to focus our attention on 9/11 and those events, and not on the war in Iraq."

And while a 2004 Senate panel did criticize the prewar intelligence as "a series of failures," it didn't look at whether the Bush team had misused the material. That task was postponed until after the election; today, in the words of Republican Sen. Pat Roberts of Kansas, it's still "on the back burner."

As yet, however, there's no sign that the memo will politically embarrass the GOP. None of the likely 2008 Democratic presidential contenders - Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, Evan Bayh, John Edwards - have made it a cause celebre. The most prominent critic is in the House, where Democrats are virtually powerless, but where Michigan Democrat John Conyers plans to conduct a public forum Thursday, with interest stoked by a grass-roots Web site called afterdowningstreet.org.

Party strategist David Axelrod explained the Democratic wariness: "We already fought that battle (over Bush's veracity) and we lost. He got elected again. So even though the memo is important, there's a sense that people don't want to revisit the lead-up to war. Although I'm not sure I agree with that, when you look at the number of Americans dead today."

[ginnyinWI]

1. one positive note

Kerry is listed as a likely presidential contender. :) To hear some, he's old news, washed up, kaput.

[whometense]

2. I also like that

the story is being picked up in more midwestern papers, in not-known-as-liberal places. Looks like it's gathering momentum to me.

There was also a new story about a new leaked British document on the same subject. I saw the story in the Washington Post, but it wasn't in the NY Times or the Boston Globe.

[TayTay]

3. That one was very interesting.

There was also a great story in there about imploding support for CAFTA among Rethugs. (Which pleases me greatly. They need to make that agreement better.) http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/11/AR2005061100575.html

Did you see that the Wisconsin Democratic Party has called for the Impeachment of * and Darth Cheney over this? It was a glorious moment.

I liked the Iraq Withdrawal Resolution that passed at the Mass Dem Convention as well. This was better. If it had been presented at the MA con, I would have voted for it in a heartbeat.

[ginnyinWI]

4. I read about it and was proud

of our Dem party. They had their convention this weekend. Now all we need are the other state Dem parties to fall in line. Wouldn't that make a media splash.

[Island Blue]

5. I do wish

that more Democrats on the national level would speak out about the DSM and the need to begin to withdraw our troops from Iraq. (I mean besides those like Conyers who have been doing so for a while.) It seems like more and more Repukes are jumping on the withdraw the troops bandwagon including the Representative from my district Walter "Freedom Fries" Jones. (A moment of silence while you feel sorry for me. Thank you.)

I think a lot of Americans are slowly realizing that George W. Bush has gotten us (and the Iraqi people) into a big fucking mess and there is no real easy answer. I am very glad that Democrats at the state level are beginning to speak out. Hopefully that will encourage those at the national level to do the same soon, and hopefully John Kerry will be the leader of the pack!

[whometense]

7. I haven't heard anything,

but I do hope Conyers hearing on Thursday will be televised on c-span.

TayTay, do senators ever show up at House hearings? Or would that be bad form? Whatever I learn about Congress, the more questions I have.

[TayTay]

8. Wow, I was thinking the same thing

I went to afterdowningstreet.org (which is not terribly well designed, btw) and searched to see if Kerry would be at the hearing. Unknown. I do know that Kerry is at the Rainbow PUSH meeting today in Chicago, as is Rep Conyers. Maybe they will talk. I would love to see him there.

The hearing is unofficial. (There's a shocker. :sarcasm:) Since it is not bounds by all the rules, I imagine Senators could show up. Ther eis also a rally afterwards outside the Capitol Building. Anyone can show to speak at that. Who knows, but I keep looking for info.

[whometense]

9. Thanks.

Do post whatever you find out. It's hard to imagine there wouldn't be some discussion of that gigantic elephant in the room. Wouldn't you love to be a fly on the wall??

[TayTay]

10. I am beyond depressed about this

Every new disclosure, be it memo or minutes, is just worse than the last. I think I'll take a break from posting about it for a few days. I have a tendency to wallow in this stuff which helps nothing. Sigh! One more read of Chris Hedges amazing and brilliant book: War is a Force Which Gives us Meaning. Everything he said in that completely brilliant and utterly bleak book is true about the Iraq War. It's so awful. So many people are dead because * wanted to leave a better legacy than his Daddy did.

http://www.tompaine.com/feature.cfm/ID/6657
This is an excerpt from an interview with Hedges, former NYTimes War Corespondent.

TomPaine.com: When a country prepares for war and goes to war, there are changes in that country's politics and culture. You write that a myth emerges -- a seductive myth as leaders spin out a cause. You write that a patriotism, a "thinly veiled form of self-worship appears." What do you mean by this myth, this cause, this patriotism and what you then say is an intoxicating result?

Chris Hedges: Well myth is always part of the way we understand war within a society. It's always there. But I think in a peacetime society we are at least open to other ways of looking at war. Just as patriotism is always part of the society. In wartime, the myth becomes ascendant.

Patriotism, national self-glorification infects everything, including culture. That's why you would go to symphony events and people wave flags and play the "Star Spangled Banner." In essence, it's the destruction of culture, which is always a prerequisite in wartime. Wartime always begins with the destruction of your own culture.

Once you enter a conflict, or at the inception of a conflict, you are given a language by which you speak. The state gives you a language to speak and you can't speak outside that language or it becomes very difficult. There is no communication outside of the cliche and the jingos, "The War on Terror," "Showdown With Iraq," "The Axis of Evil," all of this stuff.

So that whatever disquiet we feel, we no longer have the words in which to express it. The myth predominates. The myth, which is a lie, of course, built around glory, heroism, heroic self-sacrifice, the nobility of the nation. And it is a kind of intoxication. People lose individual conscience for this huge communal enterprise.

[whometense]

12. I don't blame you.

I'm in the same condition over global warming. Except I guess that hasn't killed anyone yet.

You're undoubtedly right, that 1700+ americans and hundreds of times more Iraqis are dead because of one man's paranoid megalomania. I feel so frustrated. His whole term in office has been like that slo-mo car crash you see yourself heading towards, but you're paralyzed and unable to turn the wheel. At this point all we can do is try to keep the noise loud enough that the real news can't be ignored.

I feel like there is a gigantic case of buyer's remorse in the land. The question is, what will be done? Did you happen to see This Week yesterday? If not, APJ Pundit Pap did a great job of describing George Stephanopoulos's interview of Walter "Freedom Fries" Jones:

Following the break, George Stephanopoulos interviewed Congressman Walter Jones (R-NC), the legislator who invented the term "Freedom fries." Well, it turns out that Congressman Jones has written legislation calling for the withdrawal of troops from Iraq -- that's right, he's turned on the Chimp and wants our troops out now.

Jones gave a surprisingly blunt and emotional interview, talking first about attending a memorial service for one soldier killed in Iraq at which the soldier's wife read his last letter to her, and then discussed the number of troops who've been wounded Iraq -- his voice was filled with a tone of both grief and anger: "My heart aches." He said that a decision has to be made on what to do (in other words, what our strategy for exit from Iraq should be).

Jones made one amazing statement: "I believe that once we train the Iraqi people to defend their country, then it should be their fight. How much can we do it? I mean, when you look at the number who been killed and wounded, you look at the amount of money we spent in Iraq, over 200 billion, I believe it is in my opinion, have we done enough? Have we given them the opportunity to defend themselves and their country?" Never have we heard such an indirect but clearly articulated indictment of the Pentagon's failure to plan the Iraq mess at all.

Jones acknowledged the possibility that there could some form of civil war in the coming months or years. But he also pointed out that we don't have enough troops to cover another "contingency" (for example, in North Korea) should a major problem emerge. And, at the end of the interview, Jones specifically blamed the "Neoconservatives" for the mess in Iraq.

The interview was in and of itself amazing. It almost made up for the fact that ABC News refused to mention the leaking of that second "Downing Street Memo" which indicates that the US was intent on going toward Iraq in mid 2002 at a time when there was no justification. It also makes one wonder: how many other republicans feel similarly to Jones -- but lack the cojones to go public?

One has to conclude that things may well be turning very ugly for George the Lesser, his handlers, members of the Bush Dynasty, and their corporate sponsors -- from within the GOP.

I saw the interview. Much as I don't want to give this guy credit for anything but being a pinhead, he was genuinely affecting. He's sent letters to the families of every single soldier killed in Iraq. A loit more than the chimp has done, IMHO. If smirky is losing people like this, he really is toast.

[karynnj]

14. I've been shocked over the last decade how big the section

on Military history - broken down by each of the wars is in Barnes & Nobles and in Borders. In many stores (and we travel with one daughter who idea of seeing any area we travel to is to spend at least an hour in the largest bookstore), the military section is as big as the "history" section.

I have to admit that Brinkley's book is the first book I ever read on war - and on the first pass, until I realized that I was fascinated by Kerry's descriptions, I quickly scanned through any battle descriptions. (Then I read Bob Kerrey's book while wasting time at the book store.)

[whometense]

6. So, Ginny,

Is Sensenbrenner your rep? If so, oh my god. Did you see the video of that hearing Friday morning?

[ginnyinWI]

11. yup.

(I'd like a moment of silence for me because of him, too, Blue Island!)

I saw the replay on Sunday--I can't say I was shocked. The guy is such an ass. Bryan Kennedy ran against him last time and got 32% of the vote, and is already in the ring for next time, so we do have some hope. http://www.bk2006.org

But back to the hearing--it seemed like everyone in the room was in agreement about how rude he was acting by cutting everyone off the second their time was up, even if they were in mid-word. Typical of the repub arrogance that seems to be epidemic over there.

edit: we have eight representatives, actually in Wisconsin. Four are Dems. One is the very progressive Tammy Baldwin (Madison area, naturally). :) And the others are Gwen Moore (Milw.), Ron Kind and Dave Obey.

[whometense]

13. It was pretty shocking.

I know we've been hearing stories like this for several years now, but to actually see it play out in front of your eyes - well - the impact is huge. James Zogby was really upset. And the way Sensenbrenner had the mikes cut??? Yow. They interviewed Nadler on Morning Sedition this morning - he's the rep who kept talking even after they cut his mike.

Sensenbrenner?? What a rude asshole. Speakers kept thanking him for being polite to the presenters. Were they being ironic, do you think, or were they trying to shame him into actually being civil? Unfortunately, neither irony nor shame works on these people.

[ginnyinWI]

15. trying to shame him I think

and to communicate to each other that they were aware of what was going on! And then at least one Dem. rep advised JS to let the people finish their sentences, etc. in a low-key way. But it probably just made him more belligerent. He thinks he owns the place, after so many years.

[whometense]

16. More today, if you can stand it,

on Think Progress. They have .pdf's of the actual documents.

I'm guessing this is the additional evidence Conyers was referring to, and which he intends to discuss at the hearing Thursday.

I wonder who's leaking this stuff? Have you heard any names mentioned?