[Peace-discuss] Rohloff?

Mon Nov 21 13:26:20 CST 2005

I need Rebeccas Rohloff's email address? Anyone. Thanks.

Sandra

See my art at www.spiritofsandra.com

>From: Chuck Minne <mincam2 at yahoo.com>
>To: "peace-discuss at lists.groogroo.com" <peace-discuss at lists.groogroo.com>
>Subject: [Peace-discuss] "None of the horrors playing out in Iraq 
>todaywould be possible without the Democratic Party."
>Date: Mon, 21 Nov 2005 07:47:43 -0800 (PST)
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>   A 'Loyal Opposition' Won't End the War
>   By Jeremy Scahill, AlterNet. Posted November 21, 2005.
>
>           Until the Democrats admit their complicity -- going back 15 
>years or more -- in the war on Iraq, there's no chance for withdrawal.
>
>
>   During the New Hampshire primary in January 2004, which I covered for 
>Democracy Now!, I confronted Dean about that statement. I asked him on what 
>intelligence he based that allegation. "Talks with people who were 
>knowledgeable," Dean told me. "Including a series of folks that work in the 
>Clinton administration."
>   A series of folks that work in the Clinton administration.
>   How does that jibe with the official Democratic line that they were 
>misled by the Bush administration? Sounds like Howard Dean, head of the 
>Democratic Party, was misled by... the Democrats. Dean's candor offers us a 
>rare glimpse into the painful truth of the matter. As unpopular as this is 
>to say, when President Bush accuses the Democrats of "rewriting history" on 
>Iraq, he is right.
>   None of the horrors playing out in Iraq today would be possible without 
>the Democratic Party. And no matter how hard some party leaders try to deny 
>it, this is their war too and will remain so until every troop is 
>withdrawn. There is no question that the Bush administration is one of the 
>most corrupt, violent and brutal in the history of this country but that 
>doesn't erase the serious responsibility the Democrats bears for the 
>bloodletting in Iraq.
>   As disingenuous as the Administration's claims that Iraq had WMDs is the 
>flimsy claim by Democratic lawmakers that they were somehow duped into 
>voting for the war. The fact is that Iraq posed no threat to the United 
>States in 2003 any more than it did in 1998 when President Clinton bombed 
>Baghdad. John Kerry and his colleagues knew that. The Democrats didn't need 
>false intelligence to push them into overthrowing Saddam Hussein's regime. 
>It was their policy; a policy made the law of the land not under George W. 
>Bush, but under President Bill Clinton when he signed the 1998 Iraq 
>Liberation Act, formally initiating the process of regime change in Iraq.
>   Manipulated intelligence is but a small part of a bigger, bipartisan 
>15-year assault on Iraq's people. If the Democrats really want to look at 
>how America was led into this war, they need to go back further than the 
>current president's inauguration.
>   As bloody and deadly as the occupation has been, it was Bill Clinton who 
>refined the art of killing innocent Iraqis following the Gulf War. One of 
>his first acts as president was to bomb Iraq, following the alleged 
>assassination plot against George HW Bush. Clinton's missiles killed the 
>famed Iraqi painter Leila al Attar as they smashed into her home. Clinton 
>presided enthusiastically over the most deadly and repressive regime of 
>economic sanctions in history -- his UN ambassador Madeline Albright 
>calling the reported deaths of half a million children "worth the price." 
>Clinton initiated the longest sustained bombing campaign since Vietnam with 
>his illegal no-fly zone bombings, attacking Iraq once every three days for 
>the final years of his presidency. It was under Clinton that Ahmed Chalabi 
>was given tens of millions of dollars and made a key player in shaping 
>Washington's Iraq policy. It was Clinton that mercilessly attacked Iraq in 
>December of 1998, destroying dozens of Baghdad
>  buildings and killing scores of civilians. It was Clinton that codified 
>regime change in Iraq as US policy. Bush ordered the invasion of Iraq but 
>he could not have done it without the years of groundwork laid by Clinton 
>and the Democrats. How ironic it was recently to hear Clinton call the war 
>"a big mistake."
>   It's easy to resist war with a president like Bush in the White House. 
>Where were these Democrats when it was Clinton's bombs raining down on 
>Iraq, when it was Clinton's economic sanctions targeting the most 
>vulnerable? Many of them were right behind him and his deadly policies the 
>same way they were behind Bush when he asked their consent to use force 
>against Iraq. As the veteran Iraq activist and Nobel Prize nominee Kathy 
>Kelly said often during the Clinton years, "It's easy to be a vegetarian 
>between meals." The fact is that one of the great crimes of our times was 
>committed by the Clinton administration with the support of many of the 
>politicians now attacking Bush.
>   Herein lies the real political crisis in this country: the Democrats are 
>not an opposition party, nor are they an antiwar party"never were. At best, 
>they are a loyal opposition. The Democrats ran a pro-war campaign in 2004 
>with Kerry struggling to convince people that Dems do occupation and war 
>better. The current head of the DNC, Howard Dean, never met a war he didn't 
>adore until he realized he could exploit the energy and sincere hopes of 
>millions of peace-loving Americans. Dean wasn't ever antiwar. In fact, 
>during the 2004 campaign he attacked Kerry for opposing the Gulf War while 
>laying out his own pro-war record.
>   "In 1991, I supported Gulf War. I supported the first President Bush," 
>declared Dean. "Senator Kerry who criticizes my foreign policy, he voted 
>against that war. I supported the Afghanistan war, because I felt it was 
>about our national defense -- 3,000 of our people were killed. I supported 
>President Clinton going into Bosnia and Kosovo."
>   How can Howard Dean look people in the eye today and pretend to speak 
>with any credibility as an antiwar voice?
>   When the hawkish Democrat Rep. John Murtha bravely stepped forward to 
>call for an immediate withdrawal of US troops from Iraq this week, he was 
>quickly blasted by the White House and simultaneously disowned by powerful 
>Democrats like John Kerry. Occupation lovers together again. The bloody 
>scandal of the Iraq occupation has opened a rare and clear window into the 
>truth about this country: there is one party represented in Washington -- 
>one that supports preemptive war and regime change. The reality is that the 
>Democrats could stop this war if the will was there. They could shut down 
>the Senate every day, not just for a few hours one afternoon. They could 
>disrupt business as usual and act as though the truth were true: this war 
>should never have happened and it must end now. The country would be behind 
>them if they did it. But they won't. They will hem and haw and call for 
>more troops and throw out epic lies about the US becoming a stabilizing 
>force in Iraq and blame the Republicans
>  for their own complicity and enthusiasm in the 15 years of bipartisan 
>crimes against Iraq. Why? Because they support war against Iraq.
>   All of this begs for a multiparty system in this country and the 
>emergence of a true opposition. The epic scale of the disaster in Iraq 
>calls for epic lessons to be learned at home. Like the Bush White House, 
>the Democrats have lost their credibility. They are undeserving of the 
>blank check of "Anybody But Bush" and should never be allowed to cash it 
>again. Rep. Rahm Emanuel, who heads up the House Democrats election 
>campaign, criticized Murtha's call for immediate withdrawal, saying, "At 
>the right time, we will have a position." It is statements like that that 
>should result in Emanuel and his colleagues losing theirs.
>   Jeremy Scahill is a correspondent for the national radio and TV program 
>Democracy Now!. He has spent extensive time reporting from Iraq and the 
>former Yugoslavia, where he covered the 1999 NATO bombing.
>
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>Government is the Entertainment Division of the military-industrial 
>complex.
>[Frank Zappa]
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