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Today's
Stories
June
1, 2005
Jason
Leopold
When President's Lie
May
31, 2005
Sen.
Mike Gravel
Thank You, Mark Felt: We Need a New
Deep Throat
David
Krieger
US Nuclear Hypocrisy
Tad
Daley
The Nuclear Me-Too Club
Joshua
Frank
Pelosi at AIPAC: Israel Comes First
Richard
Gott
Chavez Leads the Way
Norman
Solomon
Time to Get Serious About Impeachment
Tom
Segev
Our Man in the Territories
Walter
Brasch
Killing Americans with Secrecy
Diana
Johnstone
The French "Non"

May
28 / 30, 2005
Alexander
Cockburn
There's Their Way or the Galloway
Richard
Lichtman
We Wuz Framed! the Consolations
of George Lakoff
Sharon
Smith
The Road to Abu Ghraib
Paul
Craig Roberts
Bush Opts for Civil War in Iraq
Dave
Lindorff
Whigged Out: the Dems Have Become
Merely a Vestigial Opposition Party
Ramzy
Baroud
Muslims Were Desecrated, Not Just
Their Holy Book
Brian
Cloughley
Why Are Nukes OK for You, But Not for Us?
Fred
Gardner
Advice from a Lawyer About Medical Pot
Lee
Sustar
Chavez Gets Proactive
Joshua
Frank
Isikoff Comes Clean: "Nobody in the US Said a Word, Until
the Riots"
Justin
E.H. Smith
What About the People? a Report from Romania
Jackie
Corr
A Montana History Lesson on Assfulness
Michael
Kimaid
Bush as Ahab
Toufic
Haddad
Lessons from the Reversal of the AUC Boycott
Justin
Taylor
The Fear of Paul Virilio
Amir
Butler
Searching for a Saladin
Ben
Tripp
Insomnia and Sarcasm
Poets'
Basement
Albert, Engel, Davies and Louise

May
27, 2005
Gary
Leupp
It Really is a Crusade!
Daniel
Estulin
Infiltrating Bilderberg 2005
Kevin
Zeese
Iraq Withdrawal Vote: If Walter "Freedom
Fries" Jones Can See the Light, Why Can't Nancy Pelosi?
Robert
Fisk
Mubarak's Goon Squads
Dave
Zirin
Why Pat Tillman's Parents Are No Longer
Silent
Website
of the Day
Stuckists

May
26, 2005
Yuki
Tanaka
Firebombing and Atom Bombing
Ray
McGovern
Bolton, the Monomaniac Who Would Be Ambassador
Arthur
Mitzman
Agenda for a Sustainable Europe
Jack
Random
Afghanistan: the Forgotten Occupation
Britt
Bailey and Brian Tokar
Big Food Strikes Back
Rebecca
Rush
The New Banana Wars: Chiquita's Threat to the Caribbean Islands
Jorge
Mariscal
Santiago v. Rumsfeld
Paul
Craig Roberts
Uncovering a DOJ Cover-up: The Murder of Kenneth Trentadue
Website
of the Day
The F Word
May
25, 2005
Camilo
Mejia
Prisoners of Conscience
Dave
Lindorff
Brain Dead Democrats
William
S. Lind
Of Cabbages, Cessnas and Kings
Chris
Floyd
Tattoo Nation: Abu Ghraib as Normalcy
Brian
Cloughley
The Stench of "Progress": the Torture and the Lies
Continue
Lenni
Brenner
The Plot to Stigmatize My Book on Nazi-Zionist Collaboration
Sean
Cain
A Review of Naomi Klein's "The Take"
Karl
Shepard
Extinction, Kansas and "Intelligent Design"
John
Ross
Sweet Revenge at Terminal Island
Website
of the Day
SWARM the Minutemen

May 24, 2005
Dave
Zirin
Palestine's Big Visitor: Not Laura,
but Ronaldo
Michele
Bollinger
Criminalizing Abortion in S. Carolina: Why Did Gabriela Flores
Go to Jail?
Winslow
Wheeler
The Pork War
Uri
Avnery
Wagner at the Holocaust Memorial
Michael
Donnelly
Behind the Green(back) Curtain
Joshua
Frank
Chavez's Economy: Is It Sustainable?
Stephen
Dunifer
The Folly of Media Reform
Paul
Craig Roberts
Is Bush a Sith Lord?

May
23, 2005
Esther
Sassaman / Thomas Nagy
An Exclusive Interview with George Galloway
Mike
Whitney
Free Jose Padilla: Three Years
in Prison, Not a Shred of Evidence
Ramzy
Baroud
Fallout from a Forged War: Battling Windmills While Iraq Burns
Michael
Dickinson
Pictures at an Exhibition: Censoring the "Carnival of Chaos"
Walter
Brasch
In Praise of Bob Barr
Dick
J. Reavis
The Newsweek Scandal: an Unmentioned Detail
Maria
Tomchick
Galloway and the US Press
Norman
Solomon
Let's Play "Media Jeopardy"
Kevin
Zeese
Inventing a Pretext for War: an Inte4rview with James Bamford
Website
of the Day
Drawings of Darfur: Genocide Through Children's Eyes
May
21 / 22, 2005
David
H. Price
CIA Skullduggery in Academia
Gabriel
García Márquez
My Visit to the Clinton White House, Bearing a Message from Fidel
on Terrorism
Oren
Ben-Dor
To Create Academic Freedom in Israel,
a Boycott is Needed
Gary
Leupp
Nights in White House Satin with Jeff Gannon
Laith
al-Saud
An Anatomy of the Iraqi Resistance
Elaine
Cassel
Bush and the Angry God: Twilight of Secular Democracy in America?
Greg
Moses
The Saints of Mischief and Halliburton
Fred
Gardner
Martyring Dr. Carol Wolman
Dave
Lindorff
The GOP's Police State
Alan
Maass
Uzbekistan's Karimov: Bush's Favorite Terrorist?
William
Blum
The American Myth Industry
Tom
Crumpacker
Send Posada Carriles to Venezuela
Niranjan
Ramakrishnan
Newsweek: a Contest of Hypocrisies
Doug
Giebel
The Grand Illusion
Evelyn
J. Pringle
No Child Left Unmedicated: TeenScreen, State-drugging and Suicide
Carolyn
Baker
Spiritual Abuse by the Religious Right
Chris
Floyd
Justice in JebWorld
Frederick
B. Hudson
Black and Gay?: a Review of "Brother to Brother"
Ben
Tripp
Him Talk Plenty Long Time: Busting the Filibuster
Poets'
Basement
Davies, Engel and Louise
May
20, 2005
Dave
Lindorff
Newsweek and White House Hypocrisy
Kevin
Zeese
As Insurgency Increases, New US Military
Recruits Fall
Paul
de Rooij
"Private": a Film in Search
of a Cliché
Christopher
Brauchli
How Insurance Companies Exploited 9/11
Mark
Engler
Triumph Over Debt?
Joshua
Frank
Bush to Dine with Porn Star
Robert
Jensen
TV Talk, No Evidence Required
Jeffery
R. Webber
Bolivia Erupts
May
19, 2005
Bill
Forman
An Interview with Alexander Cockburn
Stan
Goff
Hey, Democrats, Listen to Galloway and
Learn Something
Neve
Gordon
From Ghettos to Frontiers: What Will Happen After Israel Withdraws
from Gaza
Michael
Dickinson
The Trouble with Menwith: Tagging British Peace Activists
Karyn
Strickler
The Texas Nexus: How Racial and Political Gerrymandering United
Andrew
Freedman
Nazi Science at NIH
Paul
Craig Roberts
The Politics and Economics of Outsourcing
May
18, 2005
Jean
Bricmont
Vive La France?
Laura
Carlsen
Bush's Posada Carriles Quandry: an
Anti-Cuba Terrorist is Still a Terrorist
Mike
Whitney
The Secret Raids of Alberto Gonzales: 10,000 Swept Up
Joshua
Frank
Flushing the Koran: Why Newsweek Got It Right
George
Galloway
Thusly, I Humiliated Norm Coleman (and Christopher Hitchens)
Manuel
Garcia, Jr.
Writing Tickets for American War Crimes
Dwight
D. Eisenhower
How the GOP will Destroy Itself
Dave
Lindorff
The Plot to Make the PATRIOT Act
Even Worse
May
17, 2005
Mickey
Z.
GIs Behaving Badly
Petuuche
Gilbert
The People of Acoma Still Fight to
be Free
Paul
Craig Roberts
Lies That Kill: Why Isn't Bush in
the Dock?
Ramzy
Baroud
The New Palestinian Uprising
Robert
Jensen / Pat Youngblood
Pinning the Blame on Newsweek
Stan
Cox
Poisoning Patancheru: the Severe Side Effects of India's Drug
Industry
Dave
Zirin
American Anthem: Ozzie Guillen and Fining for Freedom
Diana
Barahona
Reporters Without Borders Unmasked
Website
of the Day
Revolutionary Flower Pot Society

May
16, 2005
Michael
Gillespie
The Family Released a Statement:
Death Notices for the Warrior Theocracy
Jason
Leopold
BP Stains the Arctic
Jesse
Muldoon
How Many Schools Left Behind?
Norman
Solomon
Media and the War: "The Bombs in Iraq Explode at Home"
Robert
Cray
Twenty
Patrick
Cockburn
Iraq is a Bloody No Man's Land
Website
of the Day
Bolton's Divorce Papers: She Took It All Away, Including Most
of the Furniture
May
14 / 15, 2005
Alexander
Cockburn
Join the 14 Per Cent Club!
Saul
Landau
Lessons from Vietnam: Wars Kill Empires as Well as People
Gary
Leupp
Whither Yale? Towards the Imperial University
JoAnn
Wypijewski
The Glory that is Lockhart, Texas
Ben
Tripp
The Wayward Airplane: a Cautionary Tale
Brian
J. Foley
Was Jesus Gay?
Tom
Barry
Bolton the Eavesdropper
Mitchell
Verter
Barbarous Oaxaca: Indigenous Rights Groups Meet the "Law
of the Club"
Mike
Ferner
War on COs: Army Files Additional Charges Against Kevin Benderman
Dan
Smith
Perceiving Darfur
Mark
Scaramella
Death with Pitfalls
Don
Fitz
Mommy, Is This a Finger in My Rice Puffs?: Splicing Human DNA
into the Food Chain
Diane
Farsetta
PR Industry Imitates Big Tobacco: the Senate's "Fake News"
Hearings
Michael
Dickinson
Soldier Crawling: Military Conscription in Turkey
Ron
Jacobs
The Jackson State Murders
Fred
Gardner
"Hydroponics? Ridiculous!": A Real Farmer Looks at
Medical Marijuana
Farrah
Hassen
Far From Heaven: a Review of Ridley Scott's "Kingdom of
Heaven"
Douglas
Valentine
50 Cent's Plea
Poets'
Basement
Louise, Ford, Engel, & Albert
Website
of the Weekend
Military Base Closings and the South

May
13, 2005
Tom
Stephens
A Chronology of US War Crimes and Torture, 1975-2005
Patrick
Cockburn
"They Destroyed Everything"
Mike
Whitney
Tom Friedman, Imperial Chronicler
Chris
Floyd
Miami Vice: the Sleazy World of Jeb Bush
Jenna
Orkin
Ground Zero's Toxic Dust
Dave
Lindorff
Googling for Fun
Joshua
Frank
Yale Fires an Acclaimed Anarchist Scholar:
an Interview with David Graeber
Website
of the Day
Botero: Pinta El Horror de Abu Ghraib
May
12, 2005
Paul
Craig Roberts
America is Losing: More Phony Jobs
Hype
Uri
Avnery
Death of a Myth
Greg
Moses
Neo-Con Logic at the Border
Carolyn
Baker
The Politics of Dominionism: the New Religious Right in America
Pat
Williams
Amateurish High Jinks on Roadless Areas
William
S. Lind
Reality Gap: the Myth of US Invincibilty
Jack
Random
The Dubious Wisdom of George W. Bush
Gary
Leupp
Douglas Feith Bares His Soul to Jeffrey Goldberg
May
11, 2005
Patrick
Cockburn
The Rise, Fall and Rise of Ahmed
Chalabi: King of Jordan to Pardon His $300 Million Bank Swindle
Kevin
Zeese
The Occupation Gets More Saddam-like
Every Day
Christopher
Brauchli
Coffee, Tea or Torture?: A One Way Ticket to Uzbekistan
Zalman
Amit
The Collapse of Academic Freedom in
Israel: Tantura, Teddy Katz and Haifa University
Robert
Shull
Carte Blanche for the Terror Cops:
Senate Gives DHS Power to Waive All Laws
Mike
Whitney
God, Gays, and George Bernard Shaw
Dr.
Teresa Whitehurst
Anti-Arabic Week at a Southern High School
Norman
Solomon
Political Bluster and the Filibuster

May
10, 2005
Richard
Drayton
The Imperial Mythology of WW II:
an Ethical Blank Check
Dave
Zirin
Steve Nash's Brilliant Year: Anti-War
Hoopster Wins NBA's MVP
Jackie
Corr
The Medicare Catch: Mrs. O'Hara's Windfall
Dave
Lindorff
Silence of the Scams: Economists
on China
Michael
Donnelly
From Roadless to Clueless: the Great
Stillborn Eco Victory
Reza
Fiyouzat
Nomadic Abstracts
Scott
Parkin
Taking Direct Action Against Halliburton
Stephen
Babcock
The Burden of Knowing Better
Alan
Farago
Florida, Water and Lobbyists
Michael
Neumann
Naomi's Courage
Website
of the Day
One Nation Under Plagiarism

May
9, 2005
Louis
Proyect
Shilling for Chevron: Jared Diamond,
Greenwasher
Robert
Fisk
"Mission Accomplished": the Occupation, Year Two
Kevin
Zeese
Concientious Objection on Trial: the Court Martial of Keith Benderman
Joshua
Frank
Kerry Bashes Gay Marriage
Sasha
Kramer
A Mother's Day Call for Justice in Haiti's Prisons
Andrew
Wimmer
Create and Resist
Jeffrey
Webber
Back to the Streets in Bolivia?
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Straight to Bechtel
May
7 / 8, 2005
Alexander
Cockburn
Who Beat Hitler?
Gary
Leupp
Biblical Prophecy and Christian Zionism
Saul
Landau
Pope Torquemada: Purges, Pedophiles and Cover-Ups
Joe
DeRaymond
Autumn of the Revolutionary: Another Look at Daniel Ortega
Daniela
Ponce
Seeing Chile in Nepal
Heather
Williams
Hollywood Does Enron
Gregory
Elich
Zimbabwe's Fight for Justice
Anis
Memon
To Cuba and Back
John
Chuckman
The Peculiar State: "Criticism of Israel is a Form of Anti-Semitism"
Mike
Whitney
Hard Right Rage Against the Truth
Ron
Jacobs
Re-Reading "Born on the Fourth of July" as the Iraq
War Grinds On
Colin
Kalmbacher
Whither Disorder? Ann Coulter and the Texas Police State, Cont.
Lance
Selfa
Uprising in Mexico City
Fred
Gardner
"Getting High is a Little Like Cuba"
Ben
Tripp
Letters on Wittgenstein
Mickey
Z.
The Mother of All Days
Richard
Joseph
Those Patriotic Magnets
Dr.
Susan Block
Come As You Are: Masturbation 101
Poets'
Basement
Smith-Ferri, Louise, Nettnin, Engel and Albert
May
6, 2005
Patrick
Cockburn
Baghdad Diary: a Week of Bombs and
Blood
Erin
Yoshioka
Another "3 Strikes" Travesty:
Why is Santo Reyes Facing Life in Prison?
Sam
Husseini
Talking with Syrians
Dave
Lindorff
Ernie Pyle Where Are You? When Reporters were Reporters
Kevin
Zeese
Circus Trials of Abu Ghraib: When Even the Fall Girl Can't Plead
Guilty
Joshua
Frank
An Overextended US Military? It Won't Stop Another War
Dan
Bacher
Tribes and Salmon Win One: Bush Backs Off Trinity River Water
Raid
P.
Sainath
India's Bloody Water Wars
May
5, 2005
Carles
Mutaner
Is Chavez's Venezuela "Socialist"
or "Populist?"
Carl
G. Estabrook
Is There Any Hope for the Pope?
Farrah
Hassen
The US's Syrian Obsession
Kevin
Zeese
"Sent Into Combat Unequipped and Unprepared": an Interview
with Patrick Resta
Michael
Leonardi
May Day with an American Soldier in Rome
Bennett
Ramberg
The Future of Nuclear Terror: Coming to a Reactor Near You
Ray
McGovern
The Smoking Gun on White House Deceit
Norman
Solomon
Nuclear Fundamentalism, the New York Times and Iran
Nicole
Colson
The Back Alley Attack on Abortion Rights
Brian
Concannon, Jr.
Clearing the Fences in Haiti
May
4, 2005
Colin
Kalmbacher
Ann Coulter and the Police State:
Heckle a Racist, Get Arrested
John
Walsh
Al Franken is a Big Fat Phony: Lying
on Air America to Support the War
Greg
Moses
Vigilante Wedge: Schwarzenegger Reprises
"Birth of a Nation"
Ali
Khan
Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Poised to Fall Apart
Chris
Floyd
Ring Them Bells
Linda
S. Heard
D-Day for Tony Blair: Bogeymen and Scare Tactics
Dave
Zirin
The NFL, Congress and the Male Cheerleader Principle
William
S. Lind
Fool's Paradise
Gary
Leupp
Bolton's Proudest Moment: Breaking
the UN's Anti-Zionist Resolution
Website
of the Day
Kent State, May 4, 1970
May
3, 2005
Dave
Lindorff
Bush has Grasped the Third Rail,
Now Turn on the Juice
Brian
Cloughley
Halliburton's War Loot
Ira
Kurzban
Death Squad Diplomacy: How Bolton Armed Haiti's Thugs and Killers
Seth
Sandronsky
Towards Debtors' Prisons?
Gilad
Atzmon
The Labour Party Isn't an Option Any More
Michael
Donnelly
Branding Eco Collapse
Alex
Sanchez
Chile's Man at the OAS: a Blow to Bush?
Peter
Linebaugh
Magna Carta and May Day
May
2, 2005
Ron
Jacobs
Toward an Anti-Imperialist Movement
Stan
Goff
The Case of Hasan Akbar
Karyn
Strickler
Achieving Gender Balance in US Politics
Joshua
Frank
Leaked UK Memo Indict's Blair's Iraq Folly
Kevin
Zeese
Getting Out of Iraq will Prove Tougher Than Getting Out of Vietnam
Vicente
Navarro
Pope Benedict: a Rightwing Politician
April
30 / May 1, 2005
Alexander
Cockburn
Marla Ruzicka, Rachel Corrie and
"Credibility"
Gabriel
Kolko
Lessons from a Total Defeat: the End
of the Vietnam War, 30 Years Later
Jennifer
Loewenstein
The Disengaged: Gaza and the Fragmentation of Palestinian Nationhood
Lee
Sustar
City for Sale: Richard Daley's Chicago
Saul
Landau
The Bush-DeLay Axis of Naked Power
T.W.
Croft
The Undiscovered Country: the High Tide of the Neo-Con Confederacy
Nikolas
Kozloff
Fox News v. Hugo Chavez
William
Blum
Never-Ending Double Standards
Dave
Lindorff
Judicial Jury Tampering in Philly
Joshua
Frank
The Bi-Partisan Assault on Teenage Girls
Doug
Giebel
Saving Jane Fonda
Steven
Erlanger
A Response to Kathy Christison, from the NYT Jerusalem Bureau
Chief
Fred
Gardner
Washington State Doctor Harassed
Mike
Whitney
Another Mad Bush Press Conference
Kurt
Nimmo
Putin Pussyfoots in Palestine
Joe
DeRaymond
A Short History of the 15th Congressional District of Pennsylvania
Michael
Dickinson
Flags
Mickey
Z.
May Day at Yankee Stadium
Justin
Taylor
The Crawling Chaos: HP Lovecraft's Polymorphous Legacy
Poets
Basement
Krieger, Engel, Albert, St. Clair
Website
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|
June 1, 2005
From Watergate to the Downing
Street Memo
When
Presidents Lie
By
JASON LEOPOLD
Tuesday's revelation that W. Mark Felt,
the former number two man at the FBI, was the anonymous source
known as Deep Throat, who helped Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein
unravel the Watergate scandal in the pages of the Washington
Post 30 years ago should be seen as an important reminder that
even the leader of the free world can be devious, corrupt and
dishonest.
Some things never change.
The parallels between the Bush and Nixon administrations are
eerily familiar. Both bullied the press, were/are highly secretive,
obsessed over leaks, engage(d) in massive cover-ups and quickly
branded aides as disloyal if they dared to raise questions about
the President's policies.
The Washington Post, the very paper that is credited with forcing
Nixon's resignation, summed it up perfectly in a Nov. 25, 2003
story on the similarities between the two administrations.
"Bush structures his White House much as Nixon did. Nixon
governed largely with four other men: Henry A. Kissinger, H.R.
Haldeman, John D. Ehrlichman and Charles Colson. This is not
unlike the "iron triangle" of aides who led Bush's
campaign and the handful of underlings now -- Cheney, chief of
staff Andrew H. Card Jr., national security adviser Condoleezza
Rice and communications director Dan Bartlett -- who are in on
most top decisions. Nixon essentially ended the tradition of
powerful Cabinets in favor of a few powerful White House aides
-- a model Bush has followed."
"The most striking similarity is in the area of secrecy
and what Nixon staffers called "managing the news."
Nixon created the White House Office of Communications, the office
that has become the center of Bush's vaunted "message discipline."
Unfortunately, neither the Washington Post nor any other mainstream
newspaper or magazine in this country will ever be credited with
exposing another Watergate. For one, mainstream reporters just
don't have the balls to put their careers on the line to sniff
around, ask tough questions, and, perhaps, find sources like
W. Mark Felt. Not even Woodward has the muckraking qualities
of what Woodward used to have. Worse, editors' at large papers
don't encourage reporters to practice that kind of reporting
anymore because they don't want to rock the boat or risk losing
their jobs or be seen as liberal and therefore become the
ire of the blogoshpere.
The sad reality these days, however, is that it takes a scandal
such as a president receiving oral sex in the Oval Office by
an intern to qualify for above the fold headlines and
impeachment. Leading the country into a war under false pretenses?
Sorry, not juicy enough.
The Downing Street
memo that was unearthed by the Times
of London last month should have been the smoking gun that
finally resulted in Bush being brought up on High Crimes and
Misdemeanor charges under the United States Constitution's impeachment
clause. The memo was written a full eight months before the U.S.
led invasion in Iraq by Matthew Rycroft, a British national security
official, based on notes he took during a July 2002 meeting of
British Prime Minister Tony Blair and his advisers, including
Richard Dearlove, the head of Britain's MI-6 intelligence service
who had recently visited the White House to meet with Bush administration
officials.
Among other things, the memo said:
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. The [National Security Council] had no patience with
the UN route.... There was little discussion in Washington of
the aftermath after military action. ...
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 neighbors, and his WMD capability was less than that of Libya,
North Korea or Iran.
These are some of the public
statements about Iraq that President Bush made after Rycroft
revealed in the July 2002 memo that Bush wanted to use military
force to overthrow Saddam Hussein and that he would say that
Iraq had a massive weapons arsenal, was a threat to the U.S.
and its neighbors in the Middle East in order to build public
support for a case for war:
"We have sources that
tell us that Saddam Hussein recently authorized Iraqi field commanders
to use chemical weapons -- the very weapons the dictator tells
us he does not have."
(Radio Address, October 5, 2002)
"The evidence indicates
that Iraq is reconstituting its nuclear weapons program. Saddam
Hussein has held numerous meetings with Iraqi nuclear scientists,
a group he calls his "nuclear mujahideen" - his nuclear
holy warriors. Satellite photographs reveal that Iraq is rebuilding
facilities at sites that have been part of its nuclear program
in the past. Iraq has attempted to purchase high-strength aluminum
tubes and other equipment needed for gas centrifuges, which are
used to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons." (Cincinnati,
Ohio Speech, October 7, 2002).
"Our intelligence officials
estimate that Saddam Hussein had the materials to produce as
much as 500 tons of sarin, mustard and VX nerve agent."
(State of the Union Address, January 28, 2003).
Despite the fact that the memo
was splashed across the front pages of dozens of international
newspapers, it was relegated to the back pages-or not covered
at all-in U.S. papers.
The memo's authenticity has never been called into question by
either the Bush administration or Tony Blair's office.
"But the potentially explosive revelation has proven to
be something of a dud in the United States," the Chicago
Tribune said in a May 17 story.
"The White House has denied the premise of the memo, the
American media have reacted slowly to it and the public generally
seems indifferent to the issue or unwilling to rehash the bitter
prewar debate over the reasons for the war," the Tribune
said. "All of this has contributed to something less than
a robust discussion of a memo that would seem to bolster the
strongest assertions of the war's critics."
How sad for the more than 1,400 soldiers and the tens of thousands
of innocent civilians who died in the Iraq war and the thousands
more who will no doubt perish as this bogus and unjust war rages
on. How much more evidence do we need to pile on in order for
those gutless Democrats and those fanatical Republicans in Congress
and the Senate to hold this president accountable for either
war crimes or defrauding the United States?
One of the key figures during Watergate made a compelling case
a couple of years ago for impeachment if President Bush intentionally
misled Congress and the public into backing a war against Iraq.
"To put it bluntly, if Bush has taken Congress and the nation
into war based on bogus information, he is cooked," wrote
John Dean, President Richard Nixon's former counsel, in a June
6, 2003 column for findlaw.com. "Manipulation or deliberate
misuse of national security intelligence data, if proven, could
be "a high crime" under the Constitution's impeachment
clause. It would also be a violation of federal criminal law,
including the broad federal anti-conspiracy statute, which renders
it a felony "to defraud the United States, or any agency
thereof in any manner or for any purpose."
Dean said that statements made by presidents that pertain to
national security issues are supposed to be held to a higher
standard of truthfulness.
"A president cannot stretch, twist or distort facts and
get away with it. President Lyndon Johnson's distortions of the
truth about Vietnam forced him to stand down from reelection.
President Richard Nixon's false statements about Watergate forced
his resignation."
Jason Leopold is the author of the explosive memoir, News
Junkie, to be released in early 2006 by Process/Feral House Books.
Visit Leopold's website at www.jasonleopold.com
for updates.
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