<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8">
</head>
<body bgcolor="#FFFFFF" text="#000000">
<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8">
<p style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; color: rgb(0, 0,
0); font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal;
font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height:
18.032px; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform:
none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; background-color:
rgb(255, 255, 255);"><big><font face="serif">Dennis Kucinich
writes in the Huffington Post:<br>
</font></big></p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; color: rgb(0, 0,
0); font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal;
font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height:
18.032px; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform:
none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; background-color:
rgb(255, 255, 255);"><big><font face="serif"><br>
As Iraq descends into chaos again, more than a decade after
"Mission Accomplished," media commentators and politicians
have mostly agreed upon calling the war a "mistake." But the
"mistake" rhetoric is the language of denial, not contrition:
it minimizes the Iraq War's disastrous consequences, removes
blame, and deprives Americans of any chance to learn from our
generation's foreign policy disaster. <br>
</font></big></p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; color: rgb(0, 0,
0); font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal;
font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height:
18.032px; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform:
none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; background-color:
rgb(255, 255, 255);"><big><font face="serif">The Iraq War was not
a "mistake" -- it resulted from calculated deception. The
painful, unvarnished fact is that<span
class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><i>we were lied to.
Now is the time to have the willingness to say that.</i></font></big></p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; color: rgb(0, 0,
0); font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal;
font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height:
18.032px; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform:
none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; background-color:
rgb(255, 255, 255);"><big><font face="serif">In fact, the truth
about Iraq was widely available, but it was ignored. There
were no WMD. Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with 9/11. The
war wasn't about liberating the Iraqi people. I said this in
Congress in 2002. Millions of people who marched in America in
protest of the war knew the truth, but were maligned by
members of both parties for opposing the president in a time
of war -- and even leveled with the spurious charge of "not
supporting the troops."</font></big></p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; color: rgb(0, 0,
0); font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal;
font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height:
18.032px; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform:
none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; background-color:
rgb(255, 255, 255);"><big><font face="serif">I've written and
spoken widely about this topic, so today I offer two ways we
can begin to address our role:</font></big></p>
<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8">
<p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; direction: ltr;
font-weight: normal; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px;
text-rendering: optimizelegibility; border: 0px none;
vertical-align: baseline; font-style: normal; font-variant:
normal; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); letter-spacing: normal;
text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none;
white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; background-color: rgb(255,
255, 255);"><font face="serif"><strong style="box-sizing:
border-box; font-weight: bold; line-height: inherit; margin:
0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">1)
President Obama must tell us the truth about Iraq and the
false scenario that caused us to go to war.<span
class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></strong><br
style="box-sizing: border-box;">
When Obama took office in 2008, he announced that his
administration would not investigate or prosecute the architects
of the Iraq War. Essentially, he suspended public debate about
the war. That may have felt good in the short term for those who
wanted to move on, but when you're talking about a war initiated
through lies, bygones can't be bygones.</font></p>
<p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; direction: ltr;
font-weight: normal; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px;
text-rendering: optimizelegibility; border: 0px none;
vertical-align: baseline; font-style: normal; font-variant:
normal; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); letter-spacing: normal;
text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none;
white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; background-color: rgb(255,
255, 255);"><font face="serif">The unwillingness to confront the
truth about the Iraq War has induced a form of amnesia which is
hazardous to our nation's health. Willful forgetting doesn't
heal, it opens the door to more lying. As today's debate ensues
about new potential military "solutions" to stem violence in
Iraq, let's remember how and why we intervened in Iraq in 2003.</font></p>
<p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; direction: ltr;
font-weight: normal; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px;
text-rendering: optimizelegibility; border: 0px none;
vertical-align: baseline; font-style: normal; font-variant:
normal; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); letter-spacing: normal;
text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none;
white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; background-color: rgb(255,
255, 255);"><font face="serif"><strong style="box-sizing:
border-box; font-weight: bold; line-height: inherit; margin:
0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">2)
Journalists and media commentators should stop giving
inordinate air and print time to people who were either
utterly wrong in their support of the war or willful in their
calculations to make war.</strong><span
class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><br style="box-sizing:
border-box;">
By and large, our Fourth Estate accepted uncritically the
imperative for war described by top administration officials and
congressional leaders. The media fanned the flames of war by not
giving adequate coverage to the arguments against military
intervention.</font></p>
<p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; direction: ltr;
font-weight: normal; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px;
text-rendering: optimizelegibility; border: 0px none;
vertical-align: baseline; font-style: normal; font-variant:
normal; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); letter-spacing: normal;
text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none;
white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; background-color: rgb(255,
255, 255);"><font face="serif">President Obama didn't start the
Iraq War, but he has the opportunity now to tell the truth. That
we were wrong to go in. That the cause of war was unjust. That
more problems were created by military intervention than solved.
That the present violence and chaos in Iraq derives from the
decision which took America to war in 2003. More than a decade
later, it should not take courage to point out the Iraq war was
based on lies.</font></p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.9em; color: rgb(0, 0,
0); font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal;
font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height:
18.032px; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform:
none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; background-color:
rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="serif"><a
href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dennis-j-kucinich/stop-calling-the-iraq-war_b_5499375.html"
title="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dennis-j-kucinich/stop-calling-the-iraq-war_b_5499375.html"
rel="nofollow" target="_blank" style="text-decoration:
underline; font-weight: normal; color: rgb(0, 0, 102);">http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dennis-j-kucinich/stop-calling...</a></font></p>
</body>
</html>