A recent poll found that a full 7 percent of Americans want to attack Iran: http://dontattackiran.org But 93 percent agreement and a dollar won't even get you a Metro ride in Washington, D.C. The Congressional Progressive Caucus held a press event on Tuesday and publicly urged the Bush Administration to engage in diplomacy, which is sort of like asking a mule to dance in the ballet. We've seen bills, resolutions, letters, requests, demands, and downright whining and begging from Congress on this issue. What we hadn't seen until Monday night was a serious effort by Congress to actually prevent an attack on Iran by impeaching President Bush.
Congressman Dennis Kucinich read 35 articles of impeachment into the record for five hours. Many of them dealt with the illegal attack on Iraq. One of them (Article XXI) addressed the build up to a possible attack on Iran. This article is worth reading. People can ask their representatives to cosponsor all 35 articles as a single resolution. A vote is expected Tuesday or Wednesday.
Article XXI MISLEADING CONGRESS AND THE AMERICAN PEOPLE ABOUT THREATS FROM IRAN, AND SUPPORTING TERRORIST ORGANIZATIONS WITHIN IRAN, WITH THE GOAL OF OVERTHROWING THE IRANIAN GOVERNMENT
In his conduct while President of the United States, George W. Bush, in violation of his constitutional oath to faithfully execute the office of President of the United States and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in violation of his constitutional duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed, has both personally and acting through his agents and subordinates misled the Congress and the citizens of the United States about a threat of nuclear attack from the nation of Iran.
The National Intelligence Estimate released to Congress and the public on December 4, 2007, which confirmed that the government of the nation of Iran had ceased any efforts to develop nuclear weapons, was completed in 2006. Yet , the president and his aides continued to suggest during 2007 that such a nuclear threat was developing and might already exist. National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley stated at the time the National Intelligence Estimate regarding Iran was released that the president had been briefed on its findings "in the last few months." Hadley's statement establishes a timeline that shows the president knowingly sought to deceive Congress and the American people about a nuclear threat that did not exist.
Hadley has stated that the president "was basically told: stand down" and, yet, the president and his aides continued to make false claims about the prospect that Iran was trying to "build a nuclear weapon" that could lead to "World War III."
This evidence establishes that the president actively engaged in and had full knowledge of a campaign by his administration to make a false "case" for an attack on Iran, thus warping the national security debate at a critical juncture and creating the prospect of an illegal and unnecessary attack on a sovereign nation.
Even after the National Intelligence Estimate was released to Congress and the American people, the president stated that he did not believe anything had changed and suggested that he and members of his administration would continue to argue that Iran should be seen as posing a threat to the United States. He did this despite the fact that United States intelligence agencies had clearly and officially stated that this was not the case.
Evidence suggests that the Bush Administration's attempts to portray Iran as a threat are part of a broader U.S. policy toward Iran. On September 30, 2001, then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld established an official military objective of overturning the regime in Iran, as well as those in Iraq, Syria, and four other countries in the Middle East, according to a document quoted in then-Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith's book, "War and Decision."
General Wesley Clark, reports in his book "Winning Modern Wars" being told by a friend in the Pentagon in November 2001 that the list of governments that Rumsfeld and Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz planned to overthrow included Iraq, Iran, Syria, Libya, Sudan, and Somalia. Clark writes that the list also included Lebanon.
Journalist Gareth Porter reported in May 2008 asking Feith at a public event which of the six regimes on the Clark list were included in the Rumsfeld paper, to which Feith replied "All of them."
Rumsfeld's aides also drafted a second version of the paper, as instructions to all military commanders in the development of "campaign plans against terrorism". The paper called for military commanders to assist other government agencies "as directed" to "encourage populations dominated by terrorist organizations or their supporters to overthrow that domination".
In January 2005, Seymour Hersh reported in the New Yorker Magazine that the Bush Administration had been conducting secret reconnaissance missions inside Iran at least since the summer of 2004.
In June 2005 former United Nations weapons inspector Scott Ritter reported that United States security forces had been sending members of the Mujahedeen-e Khalq (MEK) into Iranian territory. The MEK has been designated a terrorist organization by the United States, the European Union, Canada, Iraq, and Iran. Ritter reported that the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) had used the MEK to carry out remote bombings in Iran.
In April 2006, Hersh reported in the New Yorker Magazine that U.S. combat troops had entered and were operating in Iran, where they were working with minority groups including the Azeris, Baluchis, and Kurds.
Also in April 2006, Larisa Alexandrovna reported on Raw Story that the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) was working with and training the MEK, or former members of the MEK, sending them to commit acts of violence in southern Iran in areas where recent attacks had left many dead. Raw Story reported that the Pentagon had adopted the policy of supporting MEK shortly after the 2003 invasion of Iraq, and in response to the influence of Vice President Richard B. Cheney's office. Raw Story subsequently reported that no Presidential finding, and no Congressional oversight, existed on MEK operations.
DAVID SWANSON is a co-founder of After Downing Street, a writer and activist, and the Washington Director of Democrats.com. He is a board member of Progressive Democrats of America, and serves on the Executive Council of the Washington-Baltimore Newspaper Guild, TNG-CWA. He has worked as a newspaper reporter and as a communications director, with jobs including Press Secretary for Dennis Kucinich's 2004 presidential campaign, Media Coordinator for the International Labor Communications Association, and three years as Communications Coordinator for ACORN, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now. Swanson obtained a Master's degree in philosophy from the University of Virginia in 1997.
The Republicans see going to war with Iran as a plus to stay in power via "national security" where they believe it will help warmonger McCain elected and the Bush and Cheney debacle covered-up forever.
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Amanda Lang (22 articles, 13580 quicklinks, 431 diaries, 577 comments)
on Tuesday, June 10, 2008 at 3:33:03 PM
NOW, somehow, we need a ROBUST movement of people to get off their couches, out of their closets, pull their heads out of the sand, and be BIG enough to stand UP WITH the ONLY person in Congress who has been Big enough to stand up for us ALL, including, 4 our children, and their children, and their's, as our OTHER "forefathers" called it, unto (at least!) the 7th Generation. Without impeachment, the Way ahead is obscured in dark, flat, 2 dimensional shadows, but peering ahead through lenses lacking FULL public disclosure, fully determined and applied accountability, deep cleansing and thorough restoration, civilization soon twists off into oxymoron with orwellian nightmares as our legacy to their time. Shall they be born into slave labor camps??? Are there more than just a few here and there not too fogged and congealed in there apathy and trivial pursuits to have a care?? Kucinich has Stood UP, Wexler immediately Stood UP to cosponsor, but what can come of their courageous STAND if WeThePeople leave them Standing FOR us, instead of WeThePeople Standing UP WITH them, and with enough strength in Standing and numbers to HOLD it UP and Carry it, right on THROUGH???
Yes, let us stop the perpetually pending war on Iran, by Standing UP to the call to Stand for IMPEACHMENT! Since the clock is running out, we better MOVE on this NOW! Even if your brain is filled with chemtrail smog, break through, and stop this war on US, on Iraq, on Iran, on our health, our Constitution, all Integrity, all Compassion, and push unrelenting for others to stand, to quit helping the miscreants by yet lingering in apathy. I think we need to call out all the stops and go for broke, and if called "a pest", then be a BIG PEST!!! Get them going and out there STANDING UP!!!
When are they going to go ahead and impeach the bustards....???!!! THEY??? It will only be DONE if WeThePeople STAND UP for that IMPEACHMENT that Dennis Stood ALONE to set in motion, providing OUR chance to STAND UP in our great majority of numbers in word, to do the DEED, to DRIVE IMPEACHMENT THROUGH!!!
Geeeez, PLEASE!! LET it BE that WeThePeople will get UP and answer that call!!!!
Go on a 'walkabout' from the links at OHBOY if you need any reminders of what's immanently our due, if we don't do NOW what we NEED to do!
(-:G
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G Achin (1 articles, 0 quicklinks, 3 diaries, 57 comments)
on Tuesday, June 10, 2008 at 7:31:46 PM
Unfortunately, the Evil 1% Doctrine worked with Iraq
And without a healthy Free Press, all that needs to happen is for misinformation to be uncritically parroted from President Evil and his supporting Axis of Domestic Destruction supported by Big Oil and the Military Industrial Complex financed by future generations of Americans.
In Ron Suskind's the One Percent Doctrine (also called the Cheney doctrine) he points out that the "doctrine" was created in November 2001 (no exact date is given) during a briefing given by then-CIA Director George Tenet and an un-named briefer to U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney and then-National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice in response to worries that a Pakistani scientist was offering nuclear weapons expertise to Al Qaeda after the September 11th, 2001 terrorist attack.
Responding to the thought that Al Qaeda might want to acquire a nuclear weapon, Cheney observed that the US had to confront a nw type of threat, a "low-probability, high-impact event" as he described it.
So then, even if they believe their is only a 1% chance that Iran could offer us any harm, under their logic it compels us to war. Further, we are not in a declared war with Iraq, we are engaged in a perpetual war without end on Terror.
Looks like "Terror" aka the US military, is soon to be moving to Iran under an expansion of the current war on an undefined enemy. They don't need to declare war on Iran, they simply need to say they harbor "terrorists" and are "evil doers". Meanwhile, our brilliant "smart bombs" will only do harm to the evil doers. [That's why 1 in 23 Iraqi's are dead and the US will be hated for generations]. No we are not more safe.
We know that the President actively engaged in and had full knowledge of a campaign by his administration to make a false "case" for an attack on Iraq and without an effective press, they simply put on their flag pins and sounded their bugles like good little fascists.
But alas, we have Congress - who did and is doing absolutely nothing, except writing very big checks and telling us why they cannot do anything. It's because, they are just as or perhaps even more complicit. They built up this Military Complex. They have been elected by this Military Complex. And they have supported 7-800 military bases around the world with OUR MONEY.
But there isn't a dime for a new road or health care. OUR MONEY has been spent on the wrong priorities. We have spent our futures as well and we are all holding a GIANT IOU to China, India, Saudi Arabia et al compliments of both the Democrats and the Republicans.
Iran, thus warping the national security debate at a critical juncture and creating the prospect of an illegal and unnecessary attack on a sovereign nation. Is merely an extension of the existing war, it's not a "new" war - it's an extension of the perpetual hell hole this President and worse, this Congress, have placed this country in.
They are the ones making us less safe, and they are the ones that must go. Conyers, is worse then Bush and should go down in history as an accomplice and be tried internationally for war crimes.
Time to bring back the guillotine. Time for a few heads to roll. End Royalism.
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August Adams (10 articles, 0 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 442 comments)
on Tuesday, June 10, 2008 at 8:44:37 PM
Conyers himself answered, so told him he is most guilty now
Jay Janson reporting that during Kucinich's impeachment bill address,
I called Conyers' D.C. number as VFP mail asked, thinking I would get his voice mail as it was already evening.
To my surprise Conyers himself answered, so I just politely told him that I and millions of Americans have come to believe that he is more responsible than Bush or anyone else for the all the loss of life in the continuing wars of occupation, because he Conyers is blocking the impeachment process the only hope Americans have to use constitutional law to end the wars, and to prosecute the Bush administration.
Conyers, speaking very slowing repeated me, "Let me get this straight, you are saying that I am responsible for the wars now..........." I argued the point politely but firmly and we talked back and forth as he kept saying, "why don't you let me hear the man"..... and I kept saying sure go ahead but Conyers seemed truly taken aback and therefore interested in what I was saying to him as a member of the Veterans For Peace, and he kept talking to me. He asked for my telephone # and arefully repeated it and said we would call me. He said it twice, with emphasis. He mentioned that he liked to answer his phone himself.
Just thought other members might like to know how worthwhile it is to call Conyers.
At one stage in the conversation, I mentioned how many millions of Americans there were, honest Americans, not capitalists, certainly not communists who realize most of our elected officials are not worth talking to and that was why we call him, as someone we hope is worth talking to. (this is a line from Dancing With Wolves)
happy about VFP efforts, jay janson at your service
Repeating VFP ACTION ALERT
TELL CONYERS TO MEET WITH VETERANS Call Representative John Conyers - Tell him that at this point he, John Conyers blocking impeachment, is more guilty than anyone, Bush, Pelosi etc., for tomorrow's deaths and maiming of Iraqis. 202-225-5126 John Conyers, is more guilty than anyone, even Bush and Pelosi if he continues to block impeachment. Call Representative Conyers (202-225-5126) For with an impeachment, the wars would end and many of our Iraqi brothers and sisters would not be killled during the ongoing U.S. occupation war.Call, and whether or not Conyers calls me back, I will call him again!
Call Conyers! 'Just Do It!'
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Jay Janson (75 articles, 0 quicklinks, 6 diaries, 87 comments)
on Thursday, June 12, 2008 at 10:35:11 PM
4 comments
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