The Secret Downing Street Memo

[Donald Farris]

Hi,
I've been looking for and finally found a link to the formerly secret memo used by the United Kingdom to help determine it was okay to invade Iraq. Here it is: The Secret Way to War By Mark Danner.

The memo is approx 3/4 of the way down the page.

I find this quote from the memo telling, "Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy."

Bush, CHEney, Blair and all of those involved in this decision to cause a war for regime change in Iraq should be held accountable to the American, British and all people of the World.

[Stephen Calhoun]

Heck, it was Wolfowitz and Rumsfeld who suggested in NSC meetings after 12, September 2001 that Iraq would be a fine front. Richard Clarke, on the Bush staff at the time, tells all about it.

Alternately, when the subject of Iraq and its oil and Saddam's threat to mark oil sales to the Euro came up in Cheney's energy commission, what do you suppose Cheney may have said?

"Not to worry, Gentlemen, we've got a plan for Iraq and its oil."

The Downing Street memo constitutes a kind of smoking gun I suppose, but, after all, Blair soon bit, and his party just retained its majority in the UK. I doubt anybodys going to be held accountable. 10,000 US casualties, upwards of 100,000 Iraqi casulaties, (but who's countin'?) and two years later the mighty (albeit inept) US military hasn't even conquered Baghdad.

Accountability? No way, Jose; not going to happen in our lifetime.

Given the commandment, "Thou shalt not kill" eventually there will be accountability. God knows best.

[Donald Farris]

Hi,
Perhaps this is the smoking gun to help Republicans regain their party from Bush and fellow Neo-cons.

Reagan's former Asst. Treasury secretary Paul Craig Roberts calls for Republicans to regain credibility by impeaching GWB. Please people of all parties read this link: A Reputation in Tatters.

[Stephen Calhoun]

My own antipathy is reserved for the Democrats, Donald. There's no chance the Republicans will impeach Bush and no chance they will reject Neo-conservatism. It's the economic center of gravity, (as Ken reminds us, named "Neoliberalism",) of both parties in a climate for which productivity and returns-to-capital formation drive is the post-modern godly 'manna'.

Which is to say: the two "neos" suppose order. Although both (with respect to their public intellectuals,) have yet to reveal what they think the US populace will be doing to make its livelihood twenty years hence, the powerful unconscious appeal is today about order, security, stabilization, personal accountability, recapture of tried-and-true rules sets, etc.

Whereas: if one presumes reform or some progressive minded "getting the head together" then, in my view, one is in the position of smartly imagining what it will be like to go through various forms of serious unstability, especially political unstability. Only then, in this view, might we be able to describe what a post-neoliberal order might be like.

For example, speaking of problem Republicans and Democrats is absurd if Diebold successfully programmed vote tabulating machines to effect subversion of the 2004 election. This would be the most dramatic example.

The time has come for individuals to understand what their personal values are, what they link up to, what has been their testing, and, what is their integration with other value systems and world views.

Do they (our values, worldviews, capabilities,) fit into this new world order? Do they include negative capability; i.e. is one's self cognitively advanced enough to grok what the powerful appeal of neocon/lib is today?

[Stephen Calhoun]

Another example is raised by the Downing Street memo.

It seems, again, absurd to me to complain about problem Republicans and Democrats given the certain mendacities. The Democrats are liars simply for lying about the Bush, Cheney, Condy, Rummy, Wolfy, et al not being liars.

People say we're appropriating a kind of simulcra of 30's Germany. Then others talk about how unfair this is.

Yet, if one thinks this, then worrying about ideologues having too much a role in their parties is not worrying about the real core problems. In fact, if mendacity is critical to our politics and politicians today, then we've taken a step toward post-ideological politics. This can be approached also from the perspective of noting cultural contradictions.

Idealism yields to chaos theory.

[Kenneth Warren]

An Interview with James Bamford is available from Counterpunch.

Bamford is an investigative journalist whose books include The Puzzle Palace and Body of Secrets, both award winning best sellers. His most recent book is A Pretext for War : 9/11, Iraq, and the Abuse of America's Intelligence Agencies.

Here are some excepts:

Bamford: Intelligence was manipulated, mangled, ignored, and analysts were harassed and bullied to present the false picture that Iraq was an imminent threat to the U.S. In talking with intelligence analysts and case officers, in the months leading up to the war none believed that Iraq posed a threat to the U.S. The most basic evidence was the fact that Iraq had never begun work on a long-range missile system (unlike Iran and North Korea), something that can be easily seen by imaging satellites space with a resolution down to the centimeter. And no country has ever built a warhead without simultaneously building a delivery system.
One CIA analyst from the Iraq Non-Proliferation section told me that his boss once called his office together (about fifty people) and said, "You know what ¨ if Bush wants to go to war, it's your job to give him a reason to do so." The former analyst added, "And I said, 'All right, it's time, it's time to go . . . And I just remember saying, 'This is something that the American public, if they ever knew, they would be outraged."

And another:

Bamford: It would seem logical that if Bill Clinton could be subject to impeachment for an alleged deception over a minor consensual sexual affair, George W. Bush should be subject to the same treatment for launching a deadly and seemingly endless war based on lies, distortions and deceptions. If that doesn't qualify as a "high crime" I don't think anything does. The key problem is massive public apathy and extremely poor press coverage. I think the only way to prevent such wars in the future would be to make every citizen an equal shareholder in the war ¨ not just the families of the 140,000 troops currently in Iraq. This would require legislation mandating a draft upon the deployment of a certain number of troops to a combat environment. Also legislation forbidding deficit spending for a war should be enacted. The cost of a war would have to be paid as a surcharge on all taxpayers in the year the fighting takes place. In this way, nearly every citizen would have both a personal and financial stake in a war. If such were the case today we would not be in this situation ¨ and if we were, there would certainly be calls for impeachment.

For more see: http://www.counterpunch.org/zeese05232005.html

Kenneth Warren

[Stephen Calhoun]

Yeah, the 'massive public apathy'.

What is it a stand-in for? "Apathy" doesn't really capture it.

There are lots of ways to think about this, Ken. ...hmmm, much research prior to an assessment is needed.

The odd feature is, if you make an inquiry to a person about what the problem is, and I'm speaking here of the global-cosmic problem in a worldly sense, the respondant will up and tell you what the problem is.

'Apathy' can't cover this feature of knowing but not caring enough to know this knowing.

Well, I guess the rip of landing a man on the moon has worn ':lol:'off!!!

[Jim O'Bryan]

Yeah, the 'massive public apathy'.

Well, I guess the rip of landing a man on the moon has worn (':lol:')off!!!

Apathy and more importantly the unwillingness to want to believe the truth is reflected in the above comment!


Jim

[Stephen Calhoun]

Apathy and more importantly the unwillingness to want to believe the truth is reflected in the above comment!

Jim, unpack please.

The reference is to my apathy and unwillingness? It would seem so as a matter of reflexivity.

Hey, I'm not rebuffing the characterization!

This is very loaded up:

the unwillingness to want to believe

so if it's an assessment (errr, about moi,), we'll have to work it a bit.

[Jim O'Bryan]

SC

The Assessor must always be prepared to be assessed by the ass(?)

I just get a kick out of people that think we landed on the moon!

Especially when they are as educated as you.


Jim

[Stephen Calhoun]

The rip would be so regardless.

But, now that you mention it, probably the rip of knowing no moon landing happened has probably worn off too.
':oops:'