[Mb-civic] Stop the Crime of the Century

[ean at sbcglobal.net]

http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0513-20.htm

Published on Friday, May 13, 2005 by CommonDreams.org
Stop the Crime of the Century
by David Michael Green
 
In Iraq, there is a crime of breathtaking proportions taking place. 
Breathtaking, but necessarily surprising. We know from the historical 
record that governments will lie and deceive, and we've rarely seen 
one as immoral and venal as the Bush administration.

What has turned this crime into an astonishing demonstration of the 
depth of American democracy's decay is the complicity of the media 
establishment in hiding the original crime, and in thus doing so, ripping 
a gaping hole in the fabric of our political system.

Did you know that there now exists in the public domain a 'smoking 
gun' memo, which proves that everything the Bush administration said 
about the Iraq invasion was a lie? If you live in Britain you probably do, 
but if you live in the United States, chances are minuscule that you 
would be aware of this.

Think about that for a second. Apart from 9/11, has there been a more 
important story in the last decade than that the president lied to the 
American people about the reasons for invading Iraq, and then 
proceeded to plunge the country into an illegal war which has alienated 
the rest of the world, lit a fire under the war's victims and the Islamic 
world generally, turning them into enemy combatants, locked up 
virtually all American land forces in a war without end in sight, cost 
$300 billion and counting, taken over 1600 American lives on top of 
more than 15,000 gravely wounded, and killed perhaps 100,000 
Iraqis?

Could there be a bigger story? "How Do Japanese Dump Trash?", 
perhaps, which ran on page one of today's (May 12) Times?

Of course not. But then how is it that this is not being reported in the 
American mainstream media? How is it that the two organs most 
responsible for coverage of political developments in this country - the 
New York Times and the Washington Post - have failed to splash this 
across their front pages in bold headlines, despite the fact that they 
clearly know of the story? How, especially, could these two papers sit 
on a story like this after both recently issued mea culpas for their 
respective failures to critically cover administration claims of bogus 
Iraqi threats during the period leading up to the war, thereby 
contributing to the war themselves?

>From the Bush administration and the current generation of 
Republicans, I expect nothing but the most debased and vile politics. 
And, of course, ditto for Fox News and the rest of the overtly right-wing 
media. But I have been naive enough, until now, to believe that at least 
some of the American mainstream media has not climbed completely 
into bed with those destroyers of all that is decent about American 
democracy. Apparently I've been a fool.

Here is the story we are not being told.

Several days before their election last week (May 5), a patriot within 
the highest circle of British government leaked to the Times of London 
a memo, which proves the degree of deceit to which both the 
Americans and British publics have been subjected on the subject of 
the Iraq war. You were never supposed to see this document 
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-1593607,00.html). It is 
headlined in bold with this warning: "This record is extremely sensitive. 
No further copies should be made. It should be shown only to those 
with a genuine need to know its contents."

The memo provides minutes from a meeting of Tony Blair's most 
exclusive war cabinet, held in July of 2002. In the meeting, two of 
Blair's top officials report on discussions they had just held in 
Washington with officials at the top levels of the Bush administration.

Before describing the contents of the memo, it is important to note that 
nobody in the British government has denied to even the slightest 
degree the authenticity of this document. A highly placed American 
source has verified, off the record, that it is completely accurate in its 
recounting of the events described. And Tony Blair's only comment 
has been that there is 'nothing new' contained in the memo. This could 
not be more false. The memo proves beyond doubt the following: * 
The Bush administration had decided by July 2002, at the latest, to 
invade Iraq. The memo says that "Military action was now seen as 
inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action..." 
Later in the memo it notes that "It seemed clear that Bush had made 
up his mind to take military action". This means the claims that the 
president did not have a war plan on his desk at that time are now 
proven lies. It means that the whole kabuki dance of going to 
Congress, going to the UN, sending over weapons inspectors, pulling 
them out before they could finish their work, requiring Iraq to report to 
the Security Council on its weapons of mass destruction, then 
immediately rejecting their report as incomplete and deceitful - all of 
this - was a completely counterfeit exercise conducting for public 
relations purposes only. It also means that when former Treasury 
Secretary Paul O'Neill and former terrorism czar Richard Clarke 
reported that Bush had planned to attack Iraq from the beginning, they 
- rather than the administration which was personally savaging them as 
loonies - were telling the truth.

* The Bush and Blair administrations knew that the argument for war 
against Iraq was weak. As Foreign Secretary Jack Straw notes in the 
meeting, "But the case was thin. Saddam was not threatening his 
neighbours, and his WMD capability was less than that of Libya, North 
Korea or Iran". This is proof that Iraq was never anything like the 
serious threat it was portrayed to be before the war, and that both 
administrations knew that it was no threat, but knowingly and 
completely oversold the necessity for the war with their massive 
phalanx of lies and distortions.

* Because the case was thin, the war would have to be "...justified by 
the conjunction of terrorism and WMD". This proves that former 
Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz wasn't kidding when he let 
slip that the weapons of mass destruction argument was decided on by 
the administration for "bureaucratic reasons", meaning a rationale that 
all the leading actors within the administration could agree on as the 
most effective public relations device for marketing the war.

* Both the Bush and Blair administrations manipulated intelligence to 
get what they wanted in order to justify the war, and knew that they 
were doing precisely that. As the memo states, "...the intelligence and 
facts were being fixed around the policy". This is the most \ remarkable 
statement of all, as it makes clear that the decision to invade had 
nothing to do with facts or any sort of real threat. Rather, it was simply 
a preference of the Bush administration (and probably just a personal 
one for Bush), which then became its policy, for which they then 
twisted and fabricated information and disinformation in order to sell 
the war to a rightly skeptical public.

* The war was illegal. Kofi Annan and the international community 
clearly believed that the war was a violation of international law. But we 
now also know that the British Attorney-General, who has to rule on 
this point (the question of the legality of launching a war is traditionally 
far less significant, unfortunately, in the American political tradition), 
"said that the desire for regime change was not a legal base for military 
action. There were three possible legal bases: self-defence, 
humanitarian intervention, or UNSC authorisation [which was never 
ultimately obtained from the Security Council]. The first and second 
could not be the base in this case. Relying on UNSCR 1205 of three 
years ago would be difficult. The situation might change of course." 
Yes, of course. Then, again, if it didn't, one could always just lie about 
it.

* Knowing that the war was neither legal nor morally justifiable, the 
American and British governments therefore sought to find a way to 
make the war politically acceptable by baiting Saddam. As the memo 
notes, "We should work up a plan for an ultimatum to Saddam to allow 
back in the UN weapons inspectors. This would also help with the legal 
justification for the use of force". And, "The Prime Minister said that it 
would make a big difference politically and legally if Saddam refused to 
allow in the UN inspectors". And, "If the political context were right, 
people would support regime change".

* Well before the war was 'justified', even in the bogus sense of 
Washington's and London's inspections and UN resolutions game, it 
had lready begun. The memo states that the "US had already begun 
'spikes of activity' to put pressure on the regime".

* Finally, it is worth noting that, even putting legal and moral questions 
aside, the memo also substantiates the sheer strategic incompetence 
of the administration, a failure which has, of course, produced 
excessive loss of life. It states that "There was little discussion in 
Washington of the aftermath after military action".

Let's review the bidding here.

We now have definitive, verified and undenied evidence documenting 
a panoply of lies told to the American and world publics about the 
invasion of Iraq, a bloody war which was neither legally nor morally 
justified, despite overt attempts to make it so by those who wished to 
launch it.

On top of that crime, we can now also add that of America's fourth 
estate, which has completely abdicated its role and responsibility to 
present this crucial bombshell of information to the public.

It gets worse, however. Eighty-nine members of Congress have taken 
note of the items described above, as well as a separate secret 
briefing for Blair's meeting, in which it was agreed that "Britain and 
America had to 'create' conditions to justify a war", and have sent a 
letter to the president 
(http://www.house.gov/judiciary_democrats/letters/bushsecretmemoltr5
505.pdf), demanding a response.

And, yet, still there is no coverage from our press. It appears that 
demanding that the government respect the will of the people is no 
longer enough in American democracy. We must now also carry the 
burden of demanding that the media do its job and cover 
developments which are unfavorable to the national kleptocracy of 
which these giant media corporations have become a part.

That noise you hear? It's the sound of America's Founders spinning in 
their graves. And well they should, for this scenario is precisely the 
massive concentration of power they most feared. All branches of the 
government are now in the hands of the same party (meaning, 
effectively, there virtually are no branches any longer). The so-called 
opposition party facilitates Republican rule through the flattery of 
imitation, when it hasn't gone into hiding instead. The public is 
frightened and ill-informed. And now this. To this hall of shame list 
must be added a mainstream press which a week ago seemed only 
biased and intimidated, but now appears entirely complicit. We are 
now living precisely the nightmare of Washington, Jefferson, Madison 
and the rest. It must stop. We cannot have a prayer of an informed 
public curbing the worst excesses of American government if, in fact, 
that public is not informed. Sad as it is, if we ever hope to reclaim 
American democracy, it appears we must now fight for outrageous 
news to be aired, if we ever expect that news to outrage.

Notwithstanding our worst horrors and fears these last four years, 
American democracy is in deeper trouble than we knew. Now is the 
time for patriots to act.

We must begin by demanding coverage of this explosive evidence by 
the leading organs of American journalism. If the American people 
remain too jaded or frightened to demand the heads of those who 
deceived them so thoroughly, they're entitled to inherit the 
consequences of their own failures. However, they cannot make that 
choice until they know the facts.

Please therefore, for the sake of innocent Iraqis, for the sake of 
American soldiers, and for the sake of American democracy, do two 
things 'write now':

* First, send a message to the New York Times and the Washington 
Post, demanding that they cover this most significant of stories. Top 
brass at the New York Times can be emailed at the following 
addresses: Executive Editor Bill Keller at executive-
editor at nytimes.com, and Managing Editor Jill Abramson at managing-
editor at nytimes.com. For the Washington Post, try National Editor 
Michael Abramowitz at abramowitz at washpost.com, and Associate 
Editor Robert Kaiser at robertgkaiser at yahoo.com.

* Next, forward this article on to everybody you know, and ask them to 
write the Times and the Post as well, and then to forward this article in 
turn to everyone they know. With some luck, perhaps we can achieve 
a critical mass which can no longer be ignored by these papers, with 
the electronic media then to follow.

In any case, we are evidently going have to take this country back 
ourselves, without even the benefit of a competent media to report the 
news.

Fortunately, we possess the greatest weapon of all, the truth.

David Michael Green (pscdmg at hofstra.edu) is a professor of political 
science at Hofstra University in New York.

###


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