Letter to Pres Bush Concerning "Downing Street Memo"
Dear Mr. President:
We the undersigned write because of our concern regarding recent disclosures of a Downing Street Memo in the London Times, comprising the minutes of a meeting of Prime Minister Tony Blair and his top advisers. These minutes indicate that the United States and Great Britain agreed, by the summer of 2002, to attack Iraq, well before the invasion and before you even sought Congressional authority to engage in military action, and that U.S. officials were deliberately manipulating intelligence to justify the war.
As a result of these concerns, we would ask that you respond to the following questions:
1)Do you or anyone in your administration dispute the accuracy of the leaked document?
2) Were arrangements being made, including the recruitment of allies, before you sought Congressional authorization to go to war? Did you or anyone in your Administration obtain Britain's commitment to invade prior to this time?
3) Was there an effort to create an ultimatum about weapons inspectors in order to help with the justification for the war as the minutes indicate?
4) At what point in time did you and Prime Minister Blair first agree it was necessary to invade Iraq?
5) Was there a coordinated effort with the U.S. intelligence community and/or British officials to "fix" the intelligence and facts around the policy as the leaked document states?
These are the same questions 89 Members of Congress, led by Rep. John Conyers, Jr., submitted to you on May 5, 2005. As citizens and taxpayers, we believe it is imperative that our people be able to trust our government and our commander in chief when you make representations and statements regarding our nation engaging in war. As a result, we would ask that you publicly respond to these questions as promptly as possible.
Sign the letter

Stripping Rumsfeld and Bush of Impunity
According to a March 6 article in The New York Times, Gonzales submitted written testimony that said: "The policy of the United States is not to transfer individuals to countries where we believe they likely will be tortured, whether those individuals are being transferred from inside or outside the United States." He added that he was "not aware of anyone in the executive branch authorizing any transfer of a detainee in violation of that policy."
"That’s a clear, absolute lie," says Michael Ratner, executive director of the Center for Constitutional Rights, who is suing Administration officials for their involvement in the torture scandal. "The Administration has a policy of sending people to countries where there is a likelihood that they will be tortured."

Amnesty International Wants U.S. Officials Arrested and Investigated
Amnesty International USA urged foreign governments Wednesday to use international law to investigate Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and other alleged American "architects of torture" at Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo Bay and other prisons where detainees suspected of ties to terrorist groups have been interrogated.
In issuing the Amnesty International report, Shulz specifically named those he regarded as potential "high-level torture architects."
In addition to Rumsfeld and Gonzales, they included former CIA Director George Tenet; Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the former commander of U.S. forces in Iraq; Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller, commander of the Joint Task Force Guantanamo; and Douglas Feith, the under secretary of defense for policy.

America, a Symbol of . . .
This Memorial Day is not a good one for the country that was once the world's most brilliant beacon of freedom and justice.
The U.S. would regain some of its own lost dignity if a truly independent commission were established to thoroughly investigate the interrogation and detention operations associated with the war on terror and the war in Iraq. A real investigation would be traumatic because it would expose behavior most Americans would never want associated with their country.
In much of the world, the image of the U.S. under Mr. Bush has morphed from an idealized champion of liberty to a heavily armed thug in camouflage fatigues. America is increasingly being seen as a dangerously arrogant military power that is due for a comeuppance.

Editorial: Memorial Day/Praise bravery, seek forgiveness
May 30, 2005
In exchange for our uniformed young people's willingness to offer the gift of their lives, civilian Americans owe them something important: It is our duty to ensure that they never are called to make that sacrifice unless it is truly necessary for the security of the country. In the case of Iraq, the American public has failed them; we did not prevent the Bush administration from spending their blood in an unnecessary war based on contrived concerns about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. President Bush and those around him lied, and the rest of us let them. Harsh? Yes. True? Also yes. Perhaps it happened because Americans, understandably, don't expect untruths from those in power. But that works better as an explanation than as an excuse.

A senior congressman, James Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.), is working quietly but efficiently to turn the entire United States population into informants--by force.
Sensenbrenner, the U.S. House Judiciary Committee Chairman, has introduced legislation that would essentially draft every American into the war on drugs. H.R. 1528, cynically named "Safe Access to Drug Treatment and Child Protection Act," would compel people to spy on their family members and neighbors, and even go undercover and wear a wire if needed. If a person resisted, he or she would face mandatory incarceration.
Here's how the "spy" section of the legislation works: If you "witness" certain drug offenses taking place or "learn" about them, you must report the offenses to law enforcement within 24 hours and provide "full assistance in the investigation, apprehension and prosecution" of the people involved. Failure to do so would be a crime punishable by a mandatory minimum two-year prison sentence, and a maximum sentence of 10 years.

"I've seen similar injuries in an individual run over by a bus."
"He screamed out, 'Allah! Allah! Allah!' and my first reaction was that he was crying out to his god," Specialist Jones said to investigators. "Everybody heard him cry out and thought it was funny."
By the time Mr. Dilawar was taken into his final interrogations, he said, "most of us were convinced that the detainee was innocent. "Most of the interrogators had believed Mr. Dilawar was an innocent man who simply drove his taxi past the American base at the wrong time...the young man's legs "had basically been pulpified."

Evangelical college professors protest Bush visit
"No single political position should be identified with God's will," says the ad, which also chastises the president for "actions that favor the wealthy of our society and burden the poor."
Christians are to be characterized by love and gentleness, it adds, but "we believe that your administration has fostered intolerance and divisiveness and has often failed to listen to those with whom it disagrees."
"We are not Lynchburg," he said, referring to the more conservative Liberty University in Lynchburg, Va., founded by the Rev. Jerry Falwell. "We are not right wing; we're not left wing. We think our faith trumps political ideology."

Librarian's Brush with FBI Shapes her View of the USA Patriot Act
It was a moment that librarians had been dreading.

Staying What Course?
By Paul Krugman
Why did the administration want to invade Iraq, when, as the memo noted, "the case was thin" and Saddam's "W.M.D. capability was less than that of Libya, North Korea, or Iran"? Iraq was perceived as a soft target; a quick victory there, its domestic political advantages aside, could serve as a demonstration of American military might, one that would shock and awe the world.
But the Iraq war has, instead, demonstrated the limits of American power, and emboldened our potential enemies. Why should Kim Jong Il fear us, when we can't even secure the road from Baghdad to the airport?

Stop the Crime of the Century
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 demanding a response.

And, yet, still there is no coverage from our press.

How do you define High Treason?
The letter below was addressed to NY Times Executive Editor Bill Keller.
Dear Mr Keller,
I just spoke with your secretary, who says nobody has seen the minutes wherein Blair's Intelligence Chief reported that Bush, in July of 2002, had already decided on war with Iraq no matter what and that "... the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy." Let that sink in. "... the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy."

The Downing Street Memo
This is the smoking gun. This is the blue dress worn by everyone in America. If we as a people are not willing to demand accountability from our elected officials and the cowardly complicit news media, then we as a people do not deserve to live in a free country; and in fact do not live in one.
We are about to kiss America goodbye. We have traded the responsibilities of citizenship for the lies of reality TV. Journalism has been replaced with celebrity gossip; and blatant demagoguery. The 51 percent of intellectually crippled livestock who comprise a mandate seem to like it that way.
I agree that freedom is never free; but we have sold our freedom far too cheaply. I honor the Founding Fathers.
It is time for a new American Revolution. If we do not fight the forces of tyranny we will live under them. The time to act is now, or we are going to lose our beloved nation. Does anyone remember "The land of the free, and the home of the brave"?

Credibility Matters Little to Brits, Americans
As the British re-election campaign was ending, the May 1 Sunday Times of London published a secret U.K. government memorandum discussing a July 23, 2002, meeting between Blair and his top security advisers. The memo said that military action against Iraq "was seen as inevitable" and that Bush wanted to remove Saddam "through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD," weapons of mass destruction.

According to the Times, the memo said that "the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy."

The report was not disavowed by the British government. At the time of the memo, Bush officials were insisting they had no plans to attack Iraq.

I am not surprised at the duplicity. But I am astonished at the acceptance of this deception by voters in the United States and the United Kingdom.

I've seen two U.S. presidents go down the drain -- Lyndon B. Johnson on Vietnam and Richard Nixon in the Watergate scandal -- because they were no longer believed. But times change -- and I guess our values do, too.

Bush asked to explain UK war memo
WASHINGTON (CNN) Eighty-nine Democratic members of the U.S. Congress last week sent President George W. Bush a letter asking for explanation of a secret British memo that said "intelligence and facts were being fixed" to support the Iraq war in mid-2002 well before the president brought the issue to Congress for approval.

Team Bush Goes Unpunished for Torture
"Brutalization doesn't work," said Dan Coleman, a former FBI agent who retired last year. "Besides that," he added, "you lose your soul."
If we stand by and permit our high government officials to maintain impunity in the face of their torture, we, too, will have lost our soul.

More Torture Revelation From Guantanamo
"I think the harm we are doing there far outweighs the good, and I believe it's inconsistent with American values," says Saar. "In fact, I think it's fair to say that it’s the moral antithesis of what we want to stand for as a country."

$35,000 Cab Ride in Baghdad
There's actually a company in Baghdad that does nothing except offer rides to the airport and back. They've got armored cars and some guards. And they charge $35,000.
The conclusion is that two years after the fall of Baghdad, 140,000 coalition troops still can't defend a six-mile stretch of highway

Nazis and the Righteous Right
"those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat trite sayings. But when history lands a big one-two punch like “Happy Birthday, Auschwitz Survivors, Now Guess Who’s Pope?” the teacher gets our attention. And what we notice are a lot of parallels between the Nazi rise to power 80 years ago and the “Christian” right-wing rise to power today. Do we keep our wide-eyed mystification—“How could they have done those things?”—or do we do what Germans failed to do, what we revile them for not doing: Do we recognize the road we’re on, wrestle the steering wheel away from the mad bus-driver, and stop the bus before we get to the last stop..."

One of the most painful things I've read in sometime.
From 'Gook' to 'Raghead'
On the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, before hearing anything about the terror attacks that would change the direction of American history, Mr. Delgado enlisted as a private in the Army Reserve.
Mr. Delgado's background is unusual. He is an American citizen, but because his father was in the diplomatic corps, he grew up overseas. He spent eight years in Egypt, speaks Arabic and knows a great deal about the various cultures of the Middle East.
He said he believes that the absence of any real understanding of Arab or Muslim culture by most G.I.'s, combined with a lack of proper training and the unrelieved tension of life in a war zone, contributes to levels of fear and rage that lead to frequent instances of unnecessary violence.
Mirror at Common Dreams