Where's The Outrage? Why Is Anyone Other Than Someone With The Surname "Bush" Voting For Bush?
It goes without saying that I find it inconceivable that Bush could win this election. What I find difficult to understand is why anyone would vote for Bush.
Case in point: On September 13, 2004, Secretary of State Colin Powell testified before the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee. Powell testified that "it is unlikely we will find any stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq." This, of course, is about as obvious as the fact that George Bush did not get into Yale because he is the next Einstein and did not get into the Texas National Guard because he is the next Achilles. What is more striking about Powell's recent testimony is the fact that in the same testimony Powell admitted that at the time he made the case to the United Nations in February 2003 for the invasion of Iraq, some unnamed U.S. "intelligence officials" already knew that many of Powell's claims about Iraqi weapons and terrorist ties were, in Powell's words, "suspect." Powell testified as follows: "What distressed me is that there were some in the intelligence community who had knowledge that the sourcing was suspect and that was not known to me. They knew at the time I was saying it that some of the sourcing was suspect."
[I have not been able to find on the Web an actual transcript of Powell's testimony. As described below, the only major news story that appeared about Powell's testimony was in the Boston Globe, which is where these quotes appear, and which can be viewed at www.boston.com/news/articles/2004/09/14/. ]
Powell's sworn admission that U.S. intelligence officials knew that the "sourcing was suspect" to support Powell's claims about Iraq weapons of mass destruction stands in stark contrast to what Powell told the U.N. on February 5, 2003, when, in hyping the case for an immediate attack against Iraq, Powell stated: "My colleagues, every statement I make today is backed up by sources, solid sources. These are not assertions. What we're giving you are facts and conclusions based on solid intelligence." See www.guardian.co.uk.
As noted, Powell now claims that there were unnamed "intelligence officials" who knew that Powell's statements to the U.N. were false but did not share that knowledge with him. Powell's defense of lack of knowledge has been called into question by his former chief of intelligence on nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons, Greg Thielmann, who has revealed that the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research provided Powell with a report two days before Powell's U.N. speech which called into question the reliability of many of Powell's claims about Iraqi weapons.
Nevertheless, even if we accept Powell's defense of lack of knowledge at face value, the questions that arise are mind-boggling. What was the basis for Powell's repeated assurance to the U.N. that he was reporting "facts" and "not assertions"? What did Powell do to back up his claim to the U.N. that his speech was based on "solid sources"? Did Powell question intelligence officials about the reliability of the sources on which the speech was based, and if not, why not? And if he did, Powell seems to be saying now that those officials deliberately lied to him. If so, who are these unnamed lying officials and why aren't they spending the rest of their lives in jail? [Actually, deliberately lying about matters that were directly responsible for bringing the nation to war is probably chargeable as treason, which is a capital offense]. And, where were Bush and Cheney while all this lying was going on?
I refuse to believe that the voters of this nation have become so cynical and so corrupt that they cannot see that Bush's debacle in Iraq is the most horrendous scandal in U.S. history. The Secretary of State admitted that he presented false information to the U.N., notwithstanding his repeated assurances of the reliability of the information, and he admitted that officials in the U.S. government knew at the time that the information was unreliable and that Powell's assurances of reliability were false. As a direct result of these lies, more than a thousand U.S. soldiers are dead, thousands more are seriously wounded, countless more will die in the years ahead as the war drags on, tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians are dead, and Iraq is in ruins.
What I do believe is that the American people know that the Bush Administration is utterly ruthless, corrupt, and dishonest. And this is known notwithstanding the best efforts of a flaccid news media that systematically attempts to sanitize Bush's disgraceful record. I have done searches of the Web and found little reporting of Powell's testimony beyond the single story that appeared in the Boston Globe; neither the New York Times nor the Washington Post, those alleged bastions of the liberal media, carried the story.
This election is the ultimate test of pure democracy. I still believe that democracy will rise to the occasion.
Case in point: On September 13, 2004, Secretary of State Colin Powell testified before the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee. Powell testified that "it is unlikely we will find any stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq." This, of course, is about as obvious as the fact that George Bush did not get into Yale because he is the next Einstein and did not get into the Texas National Guard because he is the next Achilles. What is more striking about Powell's recent testimony is the fact that in the same testimony Powell admitted that at the time he made the case to the United Nations in February 2003 for the invasion of Iraq, some unnamed U.S. "intelligence officials" already knew that many of Powell's claims about Iraqi weapons and terrorist ties were, in Powell's words, "suspect." Powell testified as follows: "What distressed me is that there were some in the intelligence community who had knowledge that the sourcing was suspect and that was not known to me. They knew at the time I was saying it that some of the sourcing was suspect."
[I have not been able to find on the Web an actual transcript of Powell's testimony. As described below, the only major news story that appeared about Powell's testimony was in the Boston Globe, which is where these quotes appear, and which can be viewed at www.boston.com/news/articles/2004/09/14/. ]
Powell's sworn admission that U.S. intelligence officials knew that the "sourcing was suspect" to support Powell's claims about Iraq weapons of mass destruction stands in stark contrast to what Powell told the U.N. on February 5, 2003, when, in hyping the case for an immediate attack against Iraq, Powell stated: "My colleagues, every statement I make today is backed up by sources, solid sources. These are not assertions. What we're giving you are facts and conclusions based on solid intelligence." See www.guardian.co.uk.
As noted, Powell now claims that there were unnamed "intelligence officials" who knew that Powell's statements to the U.N. were false but did not share that knowledge with him. Powell's defense of lack of knowledge has been called into question by his former chief of intelligence on nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons, Greg Thielmann, who has revealed that the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research provided Powell with a report two days before Powell's U.N. speech which called into question the reliability of many of Powell's claims about Iraqi weapons.
Nevertheless, even if we accept Powell's defense of lack of knowledge at face value, the questions that arise are mind-boggling. What was the basis for Powell's repeated assurance to the U.N. that he was reporting "facts" and "not assertions"? What did Powell do to back up his claim to the U.N. that his speech was based on "solid sources"? Did Powell question intelligence officials about the reliability of the sources on which the speech was based, and if not, why not? And if he did, Powell seems to be saying now that those officials deliberately lied to him. If so, who are these unnamed lying officials and why aren't they spending the rest of their lives in jail? [Actually, deliberately lying about matters that were directly responsible for bringing the nation to war is probably chargeable as treason, which is a capital offense]. And, where were Bush and Cheney while all this lying was going on?
I refuse to believe that the voters of this nation have become so cynical and so corrupt that they cannot see that Bush's debacle in Iraq is the most horrendous scandal in U.S. history. The Secretary of State admitted that he presented false information to the U.N., notwithstanding his repeated assurances of the reliability of the information, and he admitted that officials in the U.S. government knew at the time that the information was unreliable and that Powell's assurances of reliability were false. As a direct result of these lies, more than a thousand U.S. soldiers are dead, thousands more are seriously wounded, countless more will die in the years ahead as the war drags on, tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians are dead, and Iraq is in ruins.
What I do believe is that the American people know that the Bush Administration is utterly ruthless, corrupt, and dishonest. And this is known notwithstanding the best efforts of a flaccid news media that systematically attempts to sanitize Bush's disgraceful record. I have done searches of the Web and found little reporting of Powell's testimony beyond the single story that appeared in the Boston Globe; neither the New York Times nor the Washington Post, those alleged bastions of the liberal media, carried the story.
This election is the ultimate test of pure democracy. I still believe that democracy will rise to the occasion.
posted by democratic core at 10:15 AM
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