[Peace-discuss] War criminals in theory and practice

[C. G. Estabrook]

	Corporate Media Ignores Durbin’s Admission
	that Iraq Invasion was Predicated on Lies
	Sunday April 29th 2007, 9:33 am

Majority Whip Richard Durbin, number two Democrat in Congress, “knew 
that the American public was being misled into the Iraq war but remained 
silent because he was sworn to secrecy as a member of the intelligence 
committee,” according to the Washington Times. “The information we had 
in the intelligence committee was not the same information being given 
to the American people. I couldn’t believe it,” the Congress critter 
admitted. “I was angry about it. [But] frankly, I couldn’t do much about 
it because, in the intelligence committee, we are sworn to secrecy. We 
can’t walk outside the door and say the statement made yesterday by the 
White House is in direct contradiction to classified information that is 
being given to this Congress.”

Sworn to secrecy and responsible for the murder of nearly a million 
Iraqis and three thousand, possibly ten thousand U.S. soldiers, thus 
making not only Mr. Durbin a war criminal but the whole of Congress. 
Senators John D. Rockefeller IV and Carl Levin, members of the same 
intelligence committee as Durbin, are at the head of the war criminal 
list, right after Bush, Cheney and the neocons, because these “two 
Democrats said publicly before the war that Iraqi dictator Saddam 
Hussein was intent on pursuing nuclear weapons,” that it to say they had 
the same information as Durbin.

In a somewhat more equitable and just world, the lot of them would be 
doing the perp walk in orange jumpsuits. Unfortunately, we live in a 
world nowhere near equitable and just, a world where men of Durbin’s 
caliber make statements indicating he knew, and obviously a lot of other 
Congress critters knew, the neocon invasion of Iraq was predicated on 
“intelligence failures,” i.e., absolute and calculated lies, and yet 
Durbin did not try to stop the murder of hundreds of thousands of 
innocent Iraqis because he was “sworn to secrecy.”

Beyond the Washington Times, this news is apparently not worth the light 
of day, as a Google News search produces a mere handful of results, most 
notably Fox News, which gave it a predictable spin, namely that Congress 
digested and embraced the engineered neocon lies about Saddam and his 
illusory weapons of mass destruction and the fairy tale that Saddam held 
tea and biscuit parties for “al-Qaeda” in Baghdad. All of this was 
plainly obvious at the time, but the corporate media eagerly 
disseminated neocon fabrications to a mostly indifferent and distracted 
American public, a can’t be bothered public almost as complicit in war 
crimes as Durbin.

Meanwhile, a “left-leaning, activist crowd,” according to the Boston 
Herald, enthusiastically welcomed war criminal Hillary and would-be war 
criminal Obama in California. “Obama, who has made his early opposition 
to the Iraq conflict a central theme of his campaign, told delegates he 
was proud to have bucked popular opinion at the time. It was a subtle 
but direct jab at Clinton, who voted in 2002 to grant Bush authority to 
invade Iraq.”

Plan Obama, however, does not set a withdrawal date and in fact would 
keep troops in Iraq for “counter-terrorism,” that is to say they would 
continue killing Iraqis opposed to the occupation of their country. Of 
course, Iraq is not Iran or Pakistan, two countries Obama affirms may 
need to be on the receiving end of “surgical missile strikes,” even 
though such would “further strain relations between the U.S. and the 
Arab world,” as the Chicago Tribune reported back in September, 2004. 
Apparently, this is not a big deal for the “left-leaning, activist 
crowd,” so long as it is a Democrat doing the killing and not a Bush neocon.

But then, of course, Democrats, even “left-leaning” Democrats, are not 
opposed to mass murder campaigns, as they supported Bill Clinton’s 
criminal bombing of Yugoslavia. “Democrats prefer Clinton wars and 
Republicans prefer Bush wars. But in the end, they almost unanimously 
come together to support all wars. The differences concern the choice of 
official rationale,” writes Diana Johnstone.

And, in regard to Iran, this “official rationale” differs little from 
that of the neocons. Speaking before AIPAC last month, Obama “said 
global leaders must do whatever it takes to stop Iran from enriching 
uranium and acquiring nuclear weapons,” according to the Chicago 
Sun-Times, and never mind there is no evidence of this dreaded 
acquirement. “Our job is to renew the United States’ efforts to help 
Israel achieve peace with its neighbors while remaining vigilant against 
those who do share this vision,” Obama told AIPAC.

In addition, Obama the “antiwar candidate” told AIPAC the “consequence 
of the Administration’s failed strategy in Iraq has been to strengthen 
Iran’s strategic position; reduce U.S. credibility and influence in the 
region; and place Israel and other nations friendly to the United States 
in greater peril.” In order to right this perceived wrong—that is, a 
wrong perceived by AIPAC, not the American people—Obama issued a 
“gloves-are-off memo” stating the United States, if he is selected as 
ruler, “wouldn’t rule out force” because job one of the neolib elite is 
“to never forget that the threat of violence is real.”

Indeed, the “threat of violence is real,” and it will continue to be so 
long as Democrats and Republicans lord over the political process, as 
they will come 2008.

http://kurtnimmo.com/?p=850