Downing Street Memo - Forum with Sen. Conyers
For the first time some in our government have taken the Downing Street Memo(s) seriously and this afternoon there was a forum in DC about it. We even made CNNThe Conyers hearings will be re-broadcast on C-SPAN 3 at 8pm tonight and on C-SPAN 2 at 8pm tomorrow night for those of you who want to watch.
There are some Senators and Representatives in the government that we can be proud of because they want to find out exactly how we were led into this mess. I should have written it all down but I was to busy paying attention. There were serious and pertinent questions raised by those who attended and it appeared that this forum is only the first. It was over 2 hours that I would gladly sit through again because the purpose of it was for our country, all of us, and it was not partisan, even though it will be called so.
Not one Republican showed. It was their choice to play partisan party line or to try and do their job of investigation the manipulation of America...they chose George over us, our soldiers who have been lost and our country.
Let it not be forgotten that there appeared to be all manner of obstruction thrown out in order to make the hearing difficult from the start.
The forum, which should have been a formal hearing to begin with, was held in a small room in a basement in the Capital. Conyers, being the ranking Democrat of the House Judiciary Committee was told that he would not be allowed to use a room in his office building so he arranged the forum in a basement. Looks like the ranking Republican did not believe Conyers had a right to hold the meeting and try to get to the truth of it all.
If the room thing wasn't enough, the Republican controlled House decided to schedule an unprecedented 11 votes today. Since one vote a day is not really commonplace in the Senate you can assume that it was by design in order to interfere with the forum over the Downing Street Memo...and you would be right.
Even so, there was standing room only with at least five camera's (broadcast news) in the back.
Thank goodness some of the media still does right by us!
If the Republicans that control the Senate block or interfere in our efforts to find the whole truth of whether or not the Bush Administration did, indeed, fix the facts around policy...America will have her own duty to perform. All we want is the truth.
Any elected official who would block or interfere in the investigations into the Downing Street Memo(s) puts themselves in the position of not doing their Constitutional duty and breaking their sworn oath of office to defend the United States of America.
Any person in DC that would do that deserves to lose his/her job in 2006 and be replaced by someone who WILL do the job.
posted by Myst @ 3:10 PM
9 Comments:
"the Republican controlled Senate decided to schedule an unprecedented 11 votes today"
I think that was the House, not the Senate.
You know I think the reason that no one has really cared about the memo's, is that no one actually believed the President in the first place. They just thought that it was a good idea to get rid of saddam, and they just went along, WMD's sure whatever, just get rid of saddam. And I predict that people will let him slide, as they were quite aware of the truth. Of course lying to people is one thing, and lying to Congress is something else all together.
I corrected my post...thanks for pointing it out.
Do you really believe he will be allowed to slide when it finally hits home to all those who lost friends and family in Iraq or all those who had a loved one come home in pieces that they suffered and bled not to protect our country but to satisfy Bush's ego...settling a score...trying to one-up his father?
Over 1700 US soldiers have died and over 12,000 have come back in pieces.
For all those who really believed that we were doing this for a noble cause it will be heartbreaking. These are the people who used to say we had a conspiracy theory about the reasons for the invasion. You do not think they will care that we were right and tens of thousands have died so George could tell his father that he got Saddam after he chickened out?
The GOP could go on a rampage to impeach Clinton for personal misconduct but nobody died from what he did and it did not affect the nation.
The invasion costs us almost $5 billion a month, over 1700 soldiers dead (in combat), over 12000, permanently scarred and/or disbled, hundreds have committed suicide but actual numbers are not being released...that does not even start to count what has happened in the US with program cuts, loss of jobs. loss of healthcare or tax cuts for the wealthiest which end up being paid for by those who can least afford it.
You really believe no one will care?
It's been less than two months...a short time and many have not heard about it yet because the press has for the most part refused to cover it. It is not going to die or fade away...we would be derilect in our duty to our country to allow it to disappear. It will be an issue by the time 2006 elections get here.
I hope my opinion of America's humanity never falls that low.
I hope you are wrong, if nothing else for the lives that have been wasted for one man's ego.
"Do you really believe he will be allowed to slide when it finally hits home to all those who lost friends and family in Iraq or all those who had a loved one come home in pieces that they suffered and bled not to protect our country but to satisfy Bush's ego...settling a score...trying to one-up his father?"
No, that's not it at all. Many people, me included, were very worried about the development in the ME, and around the world, we feel that there is/was a growing threat to the security of the US and western democracies including but not limited to energy supplies.
The ME is a big mess where populations in the last 50 years have doubled, yet economic growth is stagnant, think looming social security crises x 100, and with no hope in sight for reform. For one thing the major Arab states have us by the barrel, so we were really in no position to make any demands. This is just a very short synopsis of the problem. What to do. Till 9-11 including the ten years that led to 9-11 people thought we could wait it out and handle individual crisis as they developed. A little humanitarian air here, a rescue there. Why not it's been working like that for as long as anyone can remember. But that equation changed on 9-11, the wait and see policy just did not fit the bill anymore. So what to do. We had to do something, and whatever that was it had to fix, or at least mitigate a whole bunch of different problems.
Iraq seemed to present an answer, it still dose in my opinion. No one said it would be easy, but something had to be done.
I believe that I am not alone, I believe that I am in the mainstream of this. People out there a majority all agree, we might differ on many of the details of this solution, some of us thought that Bush had been useful in the opening campaign, but that the other guy would do a better job at wining the war. We were out numbered on that one and here we are.
If I had to make a guess, I believe that this campaign will at the very most get VP. Cheney or some other underling that might get thrown to the dogs if they look too hungry.
I hope this did not come off as adversarial. it's just my opinion. I actually agree with you about the Clinton thing, but the ME is bigger than that.
Myst... now that we know Saddam had WMD in the form of White Phosphorous grenades, artillery rounds and mortar rounds, are you going to remove this "After Downing Street" thing? I'm just wondering because it turns out (thanks to your research!) that the claims made about Iraq and WMD were true and all... which kinda negates the whole thing, eh?
BTW, every nation on earth has stockpiles of those white phosphorous chemical weapons, and since that's all we need to invade... who should we invade next?
Sorry, I'm being mean here, but I warned you of the jeopardy you were getting yourself into. I warned you twice about reclassifying non-WMDs as WMD. I even pointed out where you'd misinterpreted your own source material. Didn't do a bit of good though, did it!?
No worries though, I'm sure you will find a way to not notice the way you defeated your own position.
Your desperation is showing...dramatically, I might add.
You are going off about WP when I was speaking of NAPALM and DU...where's the logic? I stated that when WP is used in NAPALM it becomes part of the NAPALM weapon...I did not go off about only one part of the MK77 but the combined parts as a whole.
No I will not remove the Downing Street Memo information.
I also never said that Saddam never had chemical weapons because he did in the past but there were none during the run up to the US invasion and that has been proven. You also need to look up the difference between instrument of mass desruction and WMD...you may learn something.
You did, however, state that Saddam had DU weapons. I asked for evidence or documentation of this to which you have ignored.
We are still waiting for you to show any documentation at all that Saddam had and was using DU weapons.
Instead of wild claims with the typical Republican know it all attitude (which thankfully not all Republicans have) you should either back up your statements or not make them. Maybe you believe as Bush does that catapulting the propaganda...repeating something enough times in an attempt to make everyone believe it...is the way to turn fantasy into reality.
That bull doesn't wash with intelligent people and more people seem to be waking up daily.
I would suggest that you do give up. I have no desire to be led by a nose ring by believing everything I am told. I would much rather investigate something to find out for myself. A lifetime of information is more worthy than 6 years of machismo and I am satisfied with my continual effort to learn instead of trying to pass myself off as superior.
You give yourself away. All this was to get me to stop blogging about the DSM...sad.
We were lied to...FACT. The US began the combat actions by way of air raids before Congress gave any authorization and before we went to the UN...FACT. We told our ALLIES that we were NOT using a weapon in which they were a signatory on an International ban (NAPALM)...FACT. The list is very lengthy but the facts remain that the Bush administration has committed great crimes against the citizens of the US and the world, killed tens of thousands for a lie, cut benefits for those who are sent into harms way ($1 billion shortfall FY2005), etc.
Defending Bush and Co. is alligning yourself with traitors to the United States of America.
Can't say that I'll be heartbroken without your comments.
You know, I'm not even reading what you write anymore, so don't bother :)
Really, though, I think you'd be better off to stop blogging and get some psychological help.
This is my last post on your site. Idealogues I can handle, but crazy people are something else.
I have no intention of stopping and nobody gives a rat's ass whether you approve or not.
If you do not like this particular blog, entertain yourself elsewhere.
Continually posting when you do not agree shows you to be wasting your time as well as anyone else around and shows you to be someone only here to cause a stir...I think the term used is troll.
I do what I enjoy and have no need of psychological help. On the other hand, a person who continually tries to interject where they say they do not like to be appears to have issues...the personal piety may be fueling it as well.
Looks quite obvious that the person who tells others to get help is the one who most likely needs it.
Last post? Sounds like a winner to me but I would almost bet money that you would reinvent yourself and be back...people like you often do because you can not deal with the fact that you are not the brightest person on the planet and you are the only one who does not believe it.
Idealogues I can handle, but crazy people are something else
Trying to deal with yourself must be a real hardship.
Iraq seemed to present an answer
What answers did Iraq present?
They had nothing to do with 9/11 and they had no ties to AQ so what exactly did invading Iraq accomplish?
It has not accomplished security, democracy, jobs, stability...the only definite it has caused is more animosity toward the US.
If it was only to secure oil for the US there are two problems 1) A war of aggression in order to forcibly take another country's natural resouces is not a legal reason for war and is immoral being that you kill other people to steal from them. 2) Oil production in Iraq is still not flowing to the capacity that it was before we invaded which means that neither Iraq nor the US has ever seen any real benefit from Iraq's oil.
The Green Zone in Baghdad is being dubbed the Green Republic because everyone inside seems to be in lavish comfort while the Iraqis surrounding it have next to nothing...Baghdad Burning is a blog from an Iraqi woman living in Baghdad...she sees the reality that we are either sheltered from or refuse to see.
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