Category: Iraq

The guy behind the ultra-successful marketing campaign known as “IRAQ HAS WMDs!!!! IRAQ HAS MOBILE WEAPONS LABS!!!!” believes he should have been better-rewarded for his efforts.

In a series of interviews with Los Angeles Times reporters John Goetz and Bob Drogin, the Iraqi Intelligence Salesman Formerly Known As Curveball whined about how he isn’t appreciated in his own time.

The guy has a point. I mean, when you think about how much money has been made by leveraging the dubious-at-best assertions made by a guy who graduated with a D average from university – and, just to be clear, I’m talking about Curveball here, not any leaders of the free world – you’d think someone, somewhere could’ve seen fit to at least throw the guy a half a pallet or so of shrink-wrapped $100 bills, right?  

In looking back at the Bush debacle, one thing stands out.  It would never have happened, at least not so blatantly and egregiously, had there been a healthy opposition party in America.  Up until 2000 there was at least the illusion of the Democrats as a party in opposition to the Republicans, however ineffective.  And the Republicans, though always venal, have never been so nakedly predatory, never so in-your-face ‘I’m going to take your shit and you’re going to like it’, never so openly disdainful of the Constitution and the law.  Somewhere along the line, the notion of the Democrats as the voice of sanity counter-balancing Republican lunacy has become just so much political vaporware.  What happened?    

Cross posted on KOS

Regardless of how you feel about the crimes of George W. Bush and impeachment, there are millions of innocent people asking for justice and who have no voice of their own. Follow me below the fold to hear ONE case for impeachment and justice.

I've been skeptical of the calls to impeach George Bush and Dick Cheney, fearful that acting this late in their terms will create a circus that overshadows the question of who will succeed them in January.

David Swanson, of Democrats.com, ImpeachCheney.org, and AfterDowningStreet.org, will surely disagree when he speaks in Milwaukee Thursday, sponsored by Iraq Moratorium and others. His topic is, "Peace, Impeachment and Election Day: Which Comes First." Swanson's own writings make a strong case for impeachment.

Dennis Kucinich, who read his 35 articles of impeachment against Bush into the record on C-Span the other night, clearly thinks there are more than enough grounds to impeach.

But the person who may convince me that it's time to act is a conservative Bush backer, a Marquette University professor and blogger named John McAdams.

McAdams lives in fear that a Barack Obama administration might prosecute Bush or others for crimes they may have committed while in office, based on this statement from Obama:

What I would want to do is to have my Justice Department and my Attorney General immediately review the information that’s already there and to find out are there inquiries that need to be pursued. I can’t prejudge that because we don’t have access to all the material right now. I think that you are right, if crimes have been committed, they should be investigated. You’re also right that I would not want my first term consumed by what was perceived on the part of Republicans as a partisan witch hunt because I think we’ve got too many problems we’ve got to solve.

You know, I often get questions about impeachment at town hall meetings and I’ve said that is not something I think would be fruitful to pursue because I think that impeachment is something that should be reserved for exceptional circumstances. Now, if I found out that there were high officials who knowingly, consciously broke existing laws, engaged in coverups of those crimes with knowledge forefront, then I think a basic principle of our Constitution is nobody above the law — and I think that’s roughly how I would look at it.

That seems pretty straightforward. If someone "knowingly, consciously broke existing laws" they should be prosecuted. You'd think a law and order Republican would have no trouble with that concept.  

Originally I was going to postup on a report out of Vietnam, that I received, as to ‘Agent Orange’, a few days back.

But War brings alot of negative results, very few positives, especially in conflicts of choice built on lies and the occupations that result, often having the invading country placing a supportive government in place as they remain the occupiers.

I’ll get to the information on Agent Orange in a moment, but before that I’d like to update some other news on the Remnants of War.

They’ll be flipping pancakes for peace Friday at the Midwest Renewable Energy Expo in Wisconsin.

They’ll hold a teach-in on torture on the train to San Jose, where a picket and vigil will target a Boeing subsidiary accused of providing logistics for those “extraordinary rendition” flights.



Church bells will ring in Massachusetts. Activists will leaflet commuters in San Francisco Bay area, Brooklyn, and Takoma Park MD. Street corner vigils are planned in dozens of communities across the country, large and small.

It’s all part of the Iraq Moratorium , a monthly event that asks people to break their daily routines and do something to show that they want to Iraq war and occupation to end.

Nearly 100 events in 82 communities are listed on the Moratorium website, bringing the total to more than 1000 since the Moratorium began last September.

The Iraq Moratorium does not believe that one size fits all.  It asks people to act, but in whatever way they choose.

The whole idea is to do something — anything — to show your opposition to the war, whether it’s wearing an armband or writing your members of Congress or donating to a peace group working to end the war and occupation.  All it takes to have an action is two people and a sign.  

Friday’s the day.  Please do something.

McClatchy has started a series today on our ‘War on Terror’.

McClatchy tracked down 66 men released from Guantanamo in the most systematic survey to date of prisoners held there. Many had no connection to terrorism, but their experience turned them against America.

Must be a sign of the apocalypse.  The MSM catches up to Nobel prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz and Linda Bilmes, a former senior official in the US Department of Commerce, who wrote The Three Trillion Dollar War.

John McCain insensitive to the human cost of the war in Iraq?

Au contraire.  He’s very sensitive:

“Nothing is more precious than Americans, and I know that it has caused great heartache and pain,” he said, “but I also want to tell you that I believe in the conflict in Iraq with this new strategy, we are succeeding.

“Every American is precious, every casualty is someone that pains and grieves us, no one more than a veteran,” said Mr. McCain, who spent five years as a prisoner of war during Vietnam. “But the consequences of failure would be chaos and genocide in the region.”

Maybe that’s why we don’t even bother to count the number of Iraqis killed, while estimates range in the hundreds of thousands, even a million.

Every American is precious.

Iraqis’ lives are cheap.

And it’s really “not too important” when the killing stops.

Yesterday “GregMitch” posted a Diary on the same subject I’m placing up first.

But lets expand to on what our Civilian and Military leaders are doing to Our Troops and National Security in bushs, and now mccains call for More, occupations!

As the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan continue, an alarming number of active-duty troops are turning to prescription anti-depressants to cope with the stress of battle. David Martin reports