The Furious Spinner

Hearing, forum, meeting. Whatever. It's happened. They are now on their way to present a letter from 120 members of Congress and 560,000 other people to the Emperor, a letter which asks for answers to the questions raised by the DSM. By the way, you should read this exchange between the press secretary and reporters. He's such an asshole. I'm sorry, but nice words just fail me right now. He says the Emperor will not answer the questions because they've been answered. What? Doublespeak, doublespeak.

Did you watch/listen to the hearing? They were in this tiny little room. I could hear people coughing. I bet the room was airless, too. I was glad to hear people talking about what really happened before the war with Iraq started. There was no evidence of WMD. It was good (awful) to hear from a mother who lost her son in the war. (That's a strange expression. She didn't lose him. He was killed.) One lawyer who was testifying said Bush may have committed impeachable offenses. I am very glad someone in our government is talking about these things. I really wish the Republicans had been there. Our government is bipartisan. I wanted to see these people questioned vigorously by the other side. That's just the way we do things.

I keep hearing these supposedly respected journalists say they haven't been covering the Downing Street Memo because it isn't news: they already knew what Bush had done. Pardon me? Where did these people go to journalism school? Of course it is news. The leaking of the memo is news. The fact that they illegally went to war is news. Are you saying it is old news? Get out of the beltway, fellahs. And who cares if YOU knew what Bush had done. Your job is to report it. I mean, you probably already knew Michael Jackson was strange but that sure hasn't kept you from reporting that for week after week after week.

Have you noticed that every time someone criticizes the Emperor and his fashionistas, those people are then criticized for what they say. The admin. doesn't really deny what they've done, but the attitude is "how dare they" say gulag or how dare they compare us to the Nazis. Right now they're going after Dick Durbin for criticizing how the "detainees" (they prisoners, OK) are being treated. Then all the media make that the story, rather than the actions of this administration. In other words, maybe the prison system is a gulag, maybe these people are acting like Nazis. Look into it! Be a journalist, for chrissakes. I gotta tell ya, I've researched repressive governments since I was knee high to someone's knee and this government fits the bill. Many, if not most, of the people in Guantanamo Bay are innocent of any wrongdoing. Many were bought by our government. They said, "We'll pay you $4,000 for an Arab male in Afghanistan." So the war lords went out and rounded up Arabs. These men (and some boys) were tortured in Afghanistan first and then bound and hooded and sent to Gitmo. They had not done anything except being Arab while walking. And even those who were part of the Taliban had often been conscripted. "You join us or we'll kill you." Remember, we had promised to help those who helped us but we deserted the Afghan people. The Taliban rose to power in the vacuum left by the US betrayal and years of war with Russia. Many of those unwilling draftees into the Taliban would have welcomed the downfall of the Taliban. Instead, the US has them held incommunicado in Cuba. And according to testimony given yesterday by someone from the Attorney General's office it is the position of the United States that these people can be held forever. FOREVER.

OK. Sorry this is not more specific. And I apologize ahead of time for any typos. For some reason I am flat wrung out. I need to chill for a moment or week or something.

Take care, my brothers and sisters.

By the way, here is the letter we sent to the Emperor:

Letter to Pres Bush Concerning the "Downing Street Minutes" The Honorable George W. Bush
President of the United States of America
1600 Pennsylvania Ave, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20005

Dear Mr. President:

We the undersigned write because of our concern regarding recent disclosures of a Downing Street Memo in the London Times, comprising the minutes of a meeting of Prime Minister Tony Blair and his top advisers. These minutes indicate that the United States and Great Britain agreed, by the summer of 2002, to attack Iraq, well before the invasion and before you even sought Congressional authority to engage in military action, and that U.S. officials were deliberately manipulating intelligence to justify the war.

Among other things, the British government document quotes a high-ranking British official as stating that by July, 2002, Bush had made up his mind to take military action. Yet, a month later, you stated you were still willing to "look at all options" and that there was "no timetable" for war. Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, flatly stated that "[t]he president has made no such determination that we should go to war with Iraq."

In addition, the origins of the false contention that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction remain a serious and lingering question about the lead up to the war. There is an ongoing debate about whether this was the result of a "massive intelligence failure," in other words a mistake, or the result of intentional and deliberate manipulation of intelligence to justify the case for war. The memo appears to resolve that debate as well, quoting the head of British intelligence as indicating that in the United States "the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy."

As a result of these concerns, we would ask that you respond to the following questions:
1)Do you or anyone in your administration dispute the accuracy of the leaked document?
2) Were arrangements being made, including the recruitment of allies, before you sought Congressional authorization to go to war? Did you or anyone in your Administration obtain Britain's commitment to invade prior to this time?
3) Was there an effort to create an ultimatum about weapons inspectors in order to help with the justification for the war as the minutes indicate?
4) At what point in time did you and Prime Minister Blair first agree it was necessary to invade Iraq?
5) Was there a coordinated effort with the U.S. intelligence community and/or British officials to "fix" the intelligence and facts around the policy as the leaked document states?

These are the same questions 89 Members of Congress, led by Rep. John Conyers, Jr., submitted to you on May 5, 2005. As citizens and taxpayers, we believe it is imperative that our people be able to trust our government and our commander in chief when you make representations and statements regarding our nation engaging in war. As a result, we would ask that you publicly respond to these questions as promptly as possible.

Thank you for your prompt attention to this matter.

Sincerely,

560,000 people signed, along with at least 120 Congress people

All photographs and written material copyright © 2003-2008 by Kim Antieau unless otherwise indicated. May not be used without permission.