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Reclaiming Our Democracy, Our
Country, and Our Soul. Keeping the Downing Street Drums Beating.
By Anthony Wade
June 18, 2005
www.OpEdNews.com
“You can’t just say the President is lying.”
That was the opinion of New York Times reporter,
Elizabeth Bumiller recently when
discussing honesty in today’s press. It also highlights a serious
flaw in the current logic with today’s press that has led to the
erosion of any possible faith people have in media anymore. I would
proffer that you most certainly can say the President has lied, if
you meet one condition, that being he lied. It is a disservice to
this country to have a media that either is protecting the
President, or too scared to tell the truth.
While we are at it,
you can also call the President a criminal, if that is what he is.
It brings me no joy to say that it is fairly obvious at this point,
that George W. Bush is exactly that. In the late 1990’s the
republicans harangued this nation about the importance of the rule
of law. We were lectured to about the sanctity of the rule of law
and how because of the lies that Bill Clinton offered up, in defense
of a personal sexual indiscretion, he had to be impeached. It was
the vilification of Bill Clinton and the abuse of the rules of
impeachment that dragged this country through the most partisan
attack we will ever see, all for political retribution.
Fast forward five
years and apparently the republicans no longer are concerned about
the rule of law when it applies to their boy. That hypocrisy has
become crystallized with the unveiling of the Downing Street Memo.
Due to the corporate media blackout, many have not even heard of
this memo, which are actually meeting minutes from Britain. These
minutes, taken from a meeting held six months before the Iraq
invasion, clearly spell out that George W. Bush is indeed a war
criminal who lied this country into a war we did not need to be
involved in. The resulting 1,700 + deaths of American soldiers can
be laid at the feet of Bush. The 100,000 + deaths of Iraqi citizens
can also be laid at his feet. In the run up to the war George Bush
promised us that war was his last option. That was a lie. He
promised us that Iraq was an imminent threat. That was a lie. He
promised us that Saddam Hussein possessed the most lethal weapons
known to man. That was a lie.
Bush has done a
masterful job of employing the Sergeant Schultz defense from Hogan’s
Heroes. His cries of “I know nothing” however are starting to
unravel around him as more and more proof emerges that implicates
him directly. You must understand that lying is not necessarily
illegal. Lying to Congress however is. Lying to Congress to start a
war is even more so. There is a word for that. It is called treason.
Black's Law Dictionary defines treason as, “A
breach of allegiance to one's government, usually committed through
levying war against such government or by giving aid or comfort to
the enemy.” George Bush breached his allegiance to this country when
he chose to lie to Congress. This action has essentially levied war
against this country by forcing a war upon us, on false pretenses.
The only issue then, is if it is provable that
George W. Bush knew he was lying when he convinced Congress to
abdicate their responsibilities to wage war. That is where the
Downing Street Memo seals the fate of President Bush. Richard
Dearlove, the head of Britain’s intelligence agency reported in the
meeting minutes that after he met with the Bush administration:
“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.”
It seemed clear that Bush had
made up his mind to take military action, even if the
timing was not yet decided. But
the case was thin.
Saddam was not threatening his neighbours, and
his WMD capability was less than that of
Libya, North Korea or Iran.
The first quote proves
that Bush had decided on the policy, war, and chose to fit the
intelligence and facts around it. This was primarily done by cooking
the intelligence through the Office of Special Plans, headed by
fellow Neocon, Douglas Feith. Despite what
Elizabeth Bumiller may think, there is a
word for this. It is called lying. It matters not that the President
is the one doing the lying. The second quote proves some other lies
being spun by Bush at the time. Remember, this is six months before
the invasion when Bush was swearing to us all that he was going to
try diplomacy first and war as only the last option. This quote
states that at that exact time he was saying diplomacy in public, he
had “made up his mind” to go to war. It further admits that Bush
knew the WMD angle was “thin”, and that it was less than the three
other countries which represented potential threats at the time.
So, despite corporate
media whores such as Dana Milbank, who will sell you the cover up
and try to dismiss this story, it not only has legs, it has
handcuffs. Despite Scott McClellan’s attempts to pretend that the
President has answered the Downing Street questions, he has done
nothing but obfuscate, distort and use his corporate media machine
to ignore the realities of the crimes he has committed.
These crimes have
stolen much from us. They have stolen the lives of over 1,700
American soldiers who only ask that you not send them into harm’s
way unless it is absolutely necessary. They have stolen our
democracy by assuming a Machiavellian attitude that allows a
President to decide the rationale for a war, after the fact. That
Saddam was a bad guy has absolutely no relevance to this war because
that is NOT the reason we went to war. We went to war based on the
lies sold to us by George W. Bush about WMD. Our democracy requires
checks and balances. It requires that the powers to wage war reside
in the Congress, not the President. Three years ago, George Bush
stole our democracy and the principles upon which it was founded and
it is time to take it and our country back again.
Our collective soul
has been stolen as well by the lies that have led us into this war.
Our fears were used against us to propagate bloodshed in our name.
It was illegitimate, as the Downing Street Memo now proves. Our soul
continues to be raped by a party that no longer cares about you or
me. In response to this memo proving the crimes that led our country
to war, the Ranking Member of the Judiciary Committee for the
Democrats wanted to hold hearings to investigate the charges
discussed in this article. The response from the Republicans was to
not allow those hearings to take place in an official room.
Undeterred, John Conyers held his hearings in a room the size of a
closet. This is what has happened to our democracy. Last week the
Republican leader of the Judiciary Committee actually walked out of
a hearing on Patriot Act abuses. He shut down the committee, shut
off the microphones of the minority party, bullied witnesses, and
walked out with his gavel because he did not like what he was
hearing.
Your country has been
stolen from you by an administration that lies with impunity and has
a complicit press that tells you it is far more important what is
happening to the runaway bride than in the Iraq War. Your democracy
has been stolen by a party that thinks nothing of changing 200 year
old filibuster rules and are so rife with corruption that the
people, who manage ethics, will not investigate the least ethical
man in DC, because they have all contributed to his Political Action
Committee. This corruption knows no ends. For example, Robert F.
Kennedy has just released an
expose detailing how this administration tried to cover up for
the pharmaceutical lobby after it was revealed that an ingredient in
vaccines had contributed to high rates of autism in children. Here
is the frightening part. Senator Bill Frist attached a rider to the
bill that created the Department of Homeland Security, called the
Eli-Lilly Protection Act. Essentially, this eliminated the rights of
parents to sue vaccine makers for the autism they created. Bill
Frist received over $800,000 from the pharmaceutical lobby. Conflict
of interest anyone? This is how it works now in your democracy. It
is sold every day to the highest bidder. It was yours. It has been
stolen.
America, our soul
has also been stolen. We used to be the light for the world. We used
to be respected in the world, now we are hated. We used to lead the
world, now we invade it. We were told five years ago that the rule
of law was crucial to uphold our democracy. We were told that the
lies of William Jefferson Clinton would destroy the fabric of this
country and the only remedy was impeachment. Those lies were
personal in nature, involving a sexual indiscretion. Today we are
faced with the prospect of a President whose lies have led this
country to war, killed over 1,700 American soldiers, and countless
innocent civilians. Suddenly the rule of law seems to not matter
anymore. Instead of impeachment hearings, the same republicans will
not even allow judiciary hearings to address the facts discussed
here today. They look you in the face, preach family values and then
kill your kids. They sermonize about the rule of law, but only when
it does not implicate their own. They moralize about a culture of
life, when all they embrace are the politics of death. When faced
with the realities however, they abandon all pretense. They bully
the minority party. They take their gavel and go home. They profit
off the blood they spill and steal our democracy. They profit off
damaging the health of our children, and steal our country. They
profit off of the death of our kids and steal our collective soul.
If the President
lies, we should say the President lies. If those lies were designed
to deceive Congress into a war, we should say that is impeachable.
We should say it is treasonous. We should honor our dead and tell
the truth. As God says, the truth shall set you free.
Anthony Wade, a
contributing writer to
opednews.com, is dedicated to educating the populace to the lies
and abuses of the government. He is a 37-year-old independent writer
from New York with political commentary articles seen on multiple
websites. A Christian progressive and professional Rehabilitation
Counselor working with the poor and disabled, Mr. Wade believes that
you can have faith and hold elected officials accountable for lies
and excess.
Anthony Wade’s
Archive:
http://www.opednews.com/archiveswadeanthony.htm
Email
Anthony:
takebacktheus@gmail.com
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