Our senators deserve this.

[aquart]

The Republican mouthpiece on Newshour is citing the Democratic senators who voted for the war as justification.

I hope they're humiliated. Embarrassed. Disgusted. Squirming. I hope they feel used and played. I hope they feel like someone left twenty dollars on the nightstand (when the going rate was two hundred).

For the Republicans to say that the Democratic senators are no fools, they wouldn't have just taken Bush's word for it...........

They deserve it.

[Greenpeach]

1. Is there a list?

Can we access it? I'd also like to know which of the dems voted for the Bankruptcy Bill. How do I find out?

[emulatorloo]

3. Fitz investigation just exposed the lengths Bushco went to Lie, and allyou

can think about is getting a list to punish Dems who were lied to?

[aquart]

10. I didn't elect them to be suckers.

If we start anointing our party members as infallible gods, we are no different from the Republicans.

Our people SCREWED UP. WE knew Bush was lying. We marched. We warned our reps...and what did it get us? War.

Maybe if they were more responsive to their constituents and less responsive to the mudslinging press, we could be proud of them again.

They deserve to be used as Bush's justification. They GAVE it to him.

A two year old could have seen through that worthless "evidence." Two seconds of logical thought would have done it.

They were LIED to? If they were too stupid to know George W. Bush was a liar they are too stupid to represent Democrats.

That's their excuse. Bush had no right to lie. But THEY had no business buying a word of it.

[sandnsea]

26. What about Afghanistan??

Should they have voted against that too? Because Bush sure as hell didn't do what most Americans expected him to do in Afghanistan either. We all should have known better, right?

[aquart]

39. Afghanistan is a completely different discussion.

And my opposition to that had a different basis.

[sandnsea]

41. No it isn't

It's about whether Congress should trust a President to go to war.

[bread_and_roses]

58. The short answer is no. Isn't Congress supposed to declare War?

Robert Byrd had it right.

The Dems who voted for the IRW were afraid of the political repurcussions if they voted against it. No one will ever convince me that people as smart as Kerry ever trusted the illegitimate junta or were not aware of the weakness in the case/arguements for war. Excepting the Downing Street Memo, I don't think there is a single "revelation" now emerging in the MSM that wasn't available before the War.

Most importantly, there was no support in the International community outside Britain and the US for the notion that SH was a threat to anyone. I am supposed to believe that Kerry, etc. didn't know this?

I suppose that the line "trusting the 'commander in chief'" is the best face that can be put on it now. It does not erase their complicity, or their share in the responsibility for this war crime.

[sandnsea]

59. Commanders in Chief deploy troops

The final decision is always the Presidents. Just like it was with Afghanistan. A Declaration of War is not an order. If circumstances change, the President is not expected to invade just because there's a Declaration of War. That has always been a bullshit argument.

So, should Bush have been trusted with Afghanistan or not? He fucked it up too.

There was plenty that has been discovered after the vote, the Niger forgery for one.

[LittleClarkie]

2. Yessir it sure is the Democrats fault for the war and all

Nope, look at the Dems. Don't look at the Republicans. They didn't have a thing to do with it. And even if they did, the Dems should have stopped them. The Dems should know that the Republicans aren't safe to cross the street, let alone conduct the war.

So yeah, let's follow the pointing fingers and agree with the Republicans and George Bush himself, and BLAME THE DEMOCRATS!!

Just like with "Doin' a hell of a job" Brownie, the Democrats should have stopped those darn Republicans.

Nevermind that they created an environment and used a tragedy for political purposes so that to even breath a word of dissent meant that most of the country would turn and scream "TRAITOR" in your face.

Nah, the Republicans are all just innocent victims in this mess, the poor unfortunate fools.

[Greenpeach]

4. Oh no!

Of course the repubs are to blame for the whole ugly mess. It would just be good for us to know which of our guys is really on our side

[emulatorloo]

5. please look at this thread

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.ph...

thnx!

[BigBearJohn]

61. kick

[TahitiNut]

7. Well, it is a bit like holding the door courteously for the robber to exit

I said then and I say now: Every Congressional Democrat who voted for the IWR abdicated their leadership credibility.

Kerry lost the election with his 'Yes' vote on IWR. Yes, I voted for him. There was, however, no STUPIDER vote than 'Yes' on the IWR. None. At the very least, it was Congress abdicating their Constitutionally-mandated authority to declare war. It's theirs and theirs alone!

[LittleClarkie]

9. I just feel like the Republicans sometimes get less blame than our own

We sometimes appear to want our own to hang their heads in shame more than we want Bush to hang his head in shame.

They used 9/11 to create such an environment in this country that dissent was treason. I'm glad everyone's waking up now out of their patriotic stupor. But Bush's speech today was as much about pointing fingers and trying to deflect blame as anything else.

I just don't think we need to be so eager to help him in that regard.

[aquart]

12. Yup. I'm GLAD Daschle is gone. Glad.

[NNadir]

33. We're all thrilled with the new Repuke there who works for peace.

I mean there is nothing more worthy of peace sentiment than electing more Repukes to replace men like Daschle.

Dem Bashing, in fact, helped prevent the war, since Bush was the same as Gore.

I recall that while I was marching in the freezing bitter cold against the war in New York City, before the war, the great anti-Democrat (read Republican) Ralph Nader was in Sacramento trying to make the NBA officiating better.

Thousands upon thousands of lives were saved the distress of missed foul calls while we tried desperately in the streets to keep the hands and arms and legs on thousands of people who were destined to lose them to high explosives.

Let's get fucking real OK?

If people hadn't been such self mindless absorbed assholes as to have trashed Al Gore for - what the fuck was it about - oh yeah, their mistrust of the World Trade Organization - all those people would still have their arms and legs and heads and livers and lives.

But the purpose of the peace movement is not to make peace. It exists to make self-righteous little fucks do triumphal dances in the pools of blood.

[sandnsea]

17. Were you against Afghanistan?

What was Congress supposed to do about that? Seeing as how that is completely fucked up as well, and Bush obviously never had any intention to do anything there except appease the people and build a pipeline. Should Congress have voted no on Afghanistan?

[TahitiNut]

27. Yes. Afghanistan was not called for, imho.

The SOLE public rationale for invading was that the Taliban offer to turn over Osama bin Laden to a third nation wasn't acceptable. Well, what did we get? Again, the rationale was a fraud. The only reason for going into Afghanistan was the pipeline and hegemony - putting a 'client state' right next to Pakistan.

In September 2000, I predicted that if Junior was elected that we'd be in a shooting war in southern Asia or the Middle East. I predicted Afghanistan was the highest probability, followed by Iran or Iraq a distant third. The reason? Global energy had already sunk billions on the bet of getting a pipeline. They'd been going for it for decade already. The Taliban had been to Houston. The global oil companies weren't willing to accept contract deals and cost-plus M&O's -- they wanted outright ownership. The Taliban were, like Chavez in Venezuela, insistent that Afghan assets and national territories the 'property' of the people of Afghanistan. Global capitalists just don't accept such 'nationalization' when they can overthrow the government.

I was right.

IMHO, the invasion of Afghanistan was a fraud. A war crime. It makes absolutely no difference in judging any single vote in Congress against what the majority did - a vote for invading Afghanistan was a crime.

[sandnsea]

29. And Congress should have voted against it?

And whoever ran for President should have ran on the "foreign policy platform" you just gave?

[TahitiNut]

34. In a closer-to-perfect world? Yes.

If *I* were in Congress? Yes! That's what I would do.

I don't buy the "war" rationale for an instant. The WTC was a heinous crime by an organized crime group. It was not an act of war. The singel greatest disconnect we're having in the Middle East and south Asia is treating a CRIMINAL enterprise as a military issue. We're actually CREATING all the conditions for Civil Wars.

You see, I'm a subscriber to deontological ethics, not teleological ethics. (I often remind folks of that but it doesn't seem to help.)

[sandnsea]

35. Just answer the question, as written

The Congress. Whoever ran for President. Those people. In the real world.

[TahitiNut]

38. I'll answer in any damned way I find appropriate!

What the fuck? You think I'm some kind of DEFENDANT and you're the fucking Grand Inquisitor or something?? What the hell is happening to DU?? If you want to express your own opinion, feel free!!

[sandnsea]

40. You're skirting the question

If you don't want to answer it, just say so. Or I guess you just did.

[mondo joe]

19. They're ALL to blame. n/t

[Guaranteed]

6. They should be. And they should have renounced their votes by now.

This will keep happening until they own up.

[ProSense]

8. Damn it man! Bush lied! Cheney lied! Condi lied! Rummy lied! And

Scotty lied about the lies.

[SammyWinstonJack]

11. Right!

[aquart]

13. I knew they were lying. Did you?

[ProSense]

14. I believed they were lying, but there's a difference between me and

Congress. I was sitting at home swearing and calling Bush and the lot of them a**holes. Congress had to deal with the facts as manipulated by the Bush Administration. In a way this is moot, because Bush started the war. The fault for this catastrophe lies with Bush---not Congress, not the gullible Americans, not the war critics and not Clinton.

Congress, even though the members were duped, acted responsibly. And it's not that Bush was reckless, he lied, which is criminal.

[GrpCaptMandrake]

50. That explains the enablers

How do you explain the members of Congress who WEREN'T duped? Were they just players in a dumbshow? Kucinich. Byrd. And something approaching a hundred others.

Pacifists?

Cowards?

What?

[ProSense]

57. Deleted and reposted

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.ph...

[frogmarch]

15. Yeah, let's keep

eating our own for the whole world to see. After all, it was our senators' fault they were lied to. It's their fault they believed Powell's "evidence" that he, believing it himself, presented to the UNSC. Should our senators have known more than Powell, a White House insider, knew? Of course!

By the reasoning of some here, it's also our senators' fault that (despite the fact they didn't vote for war but for continued WMD inspections) they believed Bush would hold up his end of the bargain and not invade Iraq except as a last resort. Yeah, our senators are despicable! Let's eat 'em alive!

Everyone here who claims they themselves KNEW Bushco manipulated intelligence, what was your evidence? What proof did you have that our Democratic senators who voted in favor of the IWR didn't have? Don't cite PNAC. There's nothing in PNAC documentation that contradicts what Powell stated in his UNSC presentation.

[GrpCaptMandrake]

31. No dripping sarcasm here

But in all honesty, how, then, do you explain the Senators and Representatives who didn't vote for the IWR?

I can't see calling Bob Byrd a raging pacifist, or most of the others who voted against it.

Anyone who's ever heard Dennis Kicinich speak knows he's no shrinking violet.

If Hillary and Kerry and Edwards and Lieberman and all the rest get a pass because the "were lied to," how do we explain the rock-slid, prescient common sense of the ones who were just as lied to and still managed to vote against this trip our young people are making to George's nifty little meat grinder?

Not a flame. Just a request for an analysis.

[frogmarch]

48. Senator Byrd

believed the IWR was too broad in scope and needed to be further discussed in the Senate.

Byrd never claimed to have evidence that Saddam didn't have WMD. Byrd wanted more than circumstantial evidence that Saddam did have WMD before giving the president the kind of authority that could lead the US into war. Byrd agreed that yes, the president has the Constitutional right to use force to defend our nat'l security, but Byrd didn't like Congressional authority in matters of war to be usurped by the president. Byrd objected to giving a president so much power. He was also concerned about the cost of a war on Iraq, if the situation came to that, and the sacrifice of our soldiers' lives. He also didn't like the idea of a unilateral war, if the situation were to come to war.

Byrd's concerns were echoed by the other dissenting senators. But the concerns were also echoed by the senators who voted for the IWR. Those concerns are clearly evident in John Kerry's Congressional speech on the IWR, in which he stated point-blank what the stipulations were to his signing. Weapons inspectors would return to Iraq. War was to be a last resort. War would not be unilateral, if it came down to war. And so on. But Bushco lied. Bushco broke its promises. And now Kerry and the others are catching hell for having believed them.

I don't recall any senators who voted no on the IWR saying they did so because they had evidence Bushco was lying about WMD. They voted no because they wanted to rehash the resolution before agreeing to sign it.

[sandnsea]

16. What Bush Said In 2002

Last chance, very last chance, to hang Bush and expose him and the cabal.

Today he said, “When I made the decision to remove Saddam Hussein from power, Congress approved it with strong bipartisan support.”

His own words, from the fall of 2002:

Sept 7, 2002

Its my honor to welcome the Prime Minister back to Camp David. I look forward to spending a good three hours talking to our friend about how to keep the peace.

Video

Sept 10, 2002

“I'll make the case of how I think we ought to proceed, on how we work together to keep the peace.”

Video

Sept 19, 2002

“I am sending suggested language for a resolution. I want -- I've asked for Congress' support to enable the administration to keep the peace…If you want to keep the peace, you've got to have the authorization to use force. But it's -- this will be -- this is a chance for Congress to indicate support. It's a chance for Congress to say, we support the administration's ability to keep the peace. That's what this is all about.”

Video

Sept 23, 2002

“I believe we can achieve peace. Oh, I know the kids hear all the war rhetoric and tough talk, and that's necessary to send a message.”

Video

Sept 27, 2002

“I'm willing to give peace a chance to work… People who are willing to work with us to send a clear message to the world, a unified message, a strong resolution which defines our vision for peace… I want you to know that behind the rhetoric of war is a deep desire for peace.”

Remarks

Sept 28, 2002

“I want to thank members of both political parties in the Congress for working on a strong statement of resolve that the world will see. Members of both political parties have worked together with the -- with members of my staff, to develop a statement that shows our determination and our desire to keep the peace<”

Remarks

Oct 7, 2002

“Approving this resolution does not mean that military action is imminent or unavoidable. The resolution will tell the United Nations, and all nations, that America speaks with one voice.”

Video

LINKS:
http://www.lightupthedarkness.org/blog/?view=plink&id=1...

[welshTerrier2]

18. for once we agree!!

Democrats had to choose between taking bush at his word or being skeptical about his motivations and not trusting him ... i'm told 2/3 of Democrats in the Congress chose not to believe him ...

[sandnsea]

25. Keep helping Bush

Keep letting him get away with lying us into a war. That's all you're doing.

[welshTerrier2]

45. those who "gave bush authorization" helped bush

you just never get your facts straight, do you?

at least Kerry and others admitted they made a mistake ... but not you ... you just keep on keeping on ... once again, you prove you're tough, but wrong ...

and, although i don't really remember your asking, i'm confident you would just love to see a couple of excerpts from Kerry's floor speech about the IWR ... notice that he BELIEVES bush would only use war as a last resort ... notice that Kerry said he is GIVING the President his vote ... notice that he says he is GIVING THE PRESIDENT AUTHORITY ... what's especially disturbing, and i agree with Kerry on this, is that Kerry acknowledged in his floor speech that there was NOT adequate evidence that Saddam posed an IMMINENT THREAT and yet he still gave bush "AUTHORITY" ... in GIVING HIS AUTHORITY, he EXPECTED bush TO FULFILL HIS COMMITMENTS TO THE AMERICAN PEOPLE ...

so, yeah, let's acknowledge that those who voted to GIVE bush AUTHORITY HELPED bush and NOT those who opposed giving him that authority ... Kerry said he made a mistake; go ahead and give it a try ...

here's a totally cherry-picked, totally distorting the truth, lefty freeper, only wants to help bush, Kerry bashing (did i leave any of your other pathetic personal attacks out?) excerpt from Kerry's floor speech:

And the administration, I believe, is now committed to a recognition that war must be the last option to address this threat, not the first, and that we must act in concert with allies around the globe to make the world's case against Saddam Hussein.

As the President made clear earlier this week, "Approving this resolution does not mean that military action is imminent or unavoidable." It means "America speaks with one voice."

Let me be clear, the vote I will give to the President is for one reason and one reason only: To disarm Iraq of weapons of mass destruction, if we cannot accomplish that objective through new, tough weapons inspections in joint concert with our allies.

In giving the President this authority, I expect him to fulfill the commitments he has made to the American people in recent days--to work with the United Nations Security Council to adopt a new resolution setting out tough and immediate inspection requirements, and to act with our allies at our side if we have to disarm Saddam Hussein by force. If he fails to do so, I will be among the first to speak out.

[BeFree]

28. 2/3 of dems voted against

Good for them, let's make them the example, and not the 1/3 who voted yes.

Still, lets look at the folks who called the reps: there was us - peace lovers, all - then there were the warmongerers- nasty mean people who wanted to nuke the ME. The reps got calls from both sides. Who do you think had the most impact? Us lovers or those hateful bastards?

It was a tough vote, but it was, simply, a vote to go to the UN and get the UN to support *. The UN didn't, and * continued on with the lies all the way to Baghdad. * and the quiet sniveling pukes are the ones to blame for the problem. Not the measly 1/3 of dems.

[sandnsea]

30. Uh, UN Resolution 1441

To hold Iraq in material breach of disarmament?? Yes, the UN did vote to support Bush, when he said it was a vote to keep the peace and force Saddam to disarm.

[BeFree]

32. NO

* was going to the UN with a new resolution but he saw that the UN would have shot him down. So * weaseled his way around the UN. The UN did not support the invasion. Let me repeat that: the UN did not support the * invasion of Iraq.

The UN actually felt that Iraq was disarmed.

AFAIR, the IWR was telling * that if he could get the UN to pass an Invasion specific resolution, congress resolved it to be fine.

[sandnsea]

36. YES

1441 was after the IWR vote.

You said:

"It was a tough vote, but it was, simply, a vote to go to the UN and get the UN to support *. The UN didn't.."

But the UN did. They did not back away until 2003, 4 months after they supported the 1441 threat of force to get inspectors in to ensure disarmament.

Congress & the UN took the same tact. Bush circumvented both of them to get his war.

[BeFree]

56. No

1441 was before the IWR...

On November 8, 2002 , the UN passed Resolution 1441 urging Iraq to disarm or face "serious consequences". The resolution passed with a 15 to 0 vote, supported by Russia, China and France, and Arab countries like Syria. This gave this resolution wider support than even the 1990 Gulf War resolution. Although the Iraqi parliament voted against honoring the UN resolution, Iraqi President Saddam Hussein agreed to honor it.

Then: In October 2002, with the "Joint Resolution to Authorize the Use of United States Armed Forces Against Iraq " (Adopted 296-133 by the House of Representatives and 77-23 by the Senate), the United States Congress granted President Bush the authority to wage war against Iraq. The Joint Resolution was worded so as to encourage, but not require, UN Security Council approval for military action, although as a matter of international law the US required explicit Security Council approval for an invasion unless an attack by Iraq had been imminent ? the US administration argued that there was an "urgent," "growing," and "immediate" threat.

[sandnsea]

60. November is before October???

[ComerPerro]

21. Exactly. Thank you. The Dems didn't vote for war. Bush started the war

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

20. The "I was duped" defense is irrelevant. They voterd for the war.

They gave authorization for BushCorp to invade a sovereign nation which is illegal (not to mention immoral) whether it has WMD or not.

[seabeyond]

22. boy in my confusion i thought i was on a dem board. well

i would rather put the ownership squarely on the shoulders of bush, where they belong. i will leave it at that

[laureloak]

23. And here's what Dean has to say about our Dem senators:

"Instead of trying to pass the buck to members of Congress, who like so many Americans were willing to trust their Commander-in-Chief, the President should tell the truth to our troops and their families about how they were sent to war."

Why don't you attack Bush instead of our Dem Senators?

[welshTerrier2]

47. "willing to trust their Commander-in-Chief"

therein lies the rub ...

[DearAbby]

24. Sure lets tear down our own.

like kicking the victum when they are down. They were lied too, all of America was lied too, the world was lied too, so lets give a pass to the liars and blame those that believed the lie.

[GrpCaptMandrake]

37. For my part

my concerns with the war enablers lies not so much in their vote, as in the gullibility. What else are they susceptible to being sold by the gang of bloodthirsty murdermonkeys in the majority?

[sandnsea]

42. Afghanistan?

Should they have trusted Bush with that?

[GrpCaptMandrake]

43. I wouldn't trust Bush with a handful

of scheist. But that's me.

The issue of Afghanistan is clouded by the cozying-up the Busheviks did with the Taliban prior to 9/11 in the form of the $43 Million we gave them to buy explosives to blow up the Bamiyan Buddhas.

I often wonder just how goddamned dumb this administration is. We used the Taliban's refusal to put OBL directly into our hands as our raison d'etre for blowing the snot out of them. Problem was, as Rummy noted, Afghanistan didn't have anything left worth blowing up.

Wouldn't it have been far more sneaky, inscrutable and effective to accept the Taliban's offer to transfer OBL to a neutral third party country and blow him all to pieces during the process? Honestly! If Gavrilo Princeps could pull it off in 1914, shall we understand that it was beyond the talents of the United States in 2001? Brutal and underhanded, yes, but that must be weighed in the balance against little Iraqi children having the skin melted right off their bodies in white phosphorus attacks and little American children whose only contact with their Daddy will be a photograph viewed through tears.

Afghanistan is a bit of a canard, since with it or without it, Iraq was next anyway.

Consider the remarks of Paul Wolfowitz to the West Point graduating class of 2001 in June of that year. He told them something to the effect of "All I can tell you is be prepared to be surprised." And he said it immediately after repeating the PNAC blather about "a new Pearl Harbor."

[sandnsea]

44. No on Afghanistan then?

Congress should have voted no? The Presidential candidate should have voted no? And ran on your foreign policy platform? In the real world. Is that your position?

[GrpCaptMandrake]

49. You appear

to seek my agreement to your conditions.

Then I agree. The Senate and the House should've taken seriously their Constitutional obligation to declare war (as Senator Byrd repeatedly noted).

I have no problem with a free and independent Congress.

I don't think I suggested a "foreign policy platform," either in the Real World or in Middle Earth.

I did suggest a pretty solid use of our covert ops. We have a national ban on assassinating leaders of other countries' leaders. There's no argument that would've put OBL into that group.

I'm rather at a loss to figure out what you're getting at. At the relevant time, there was no "Presidential candidate," unless Kerry was in on a fix the rest of us, not least of whom at the time included the Deaniacs, were left out of. (Tried really hard not to leave a dangling preposition there, but couldn't get out it of.)

Afghanistan is just one more war that a coward screwed up.

[sandnsea]

52. Still no answer

Nobody wants to answer whether most politicians could have been re-elected if they'd voted no on Afghanistan. Or whether a Presidential candidate could have been. Or why the politicians who didn't trust Bush on Iraq aren't wrong for trusting him on Afghanistan. Even though both countries are screwed up and Bush didn't have honorable intentions with either one of them.

Interesting.

[sepia_steel]

46. Sorry, this is ridiculous.

Yeah, most of us don't trust *.

But our senate Dems aren't allowed to be as partisan as the average person is... well, maybe that's an overstatement, but it's not their job to be anti-war or anti-everything just because the Prez is right-wing or they don't "trust" him. They can't approach their jobs from an angle of distrust. They have to go by the information given to them.

If someone handed me a bunch of lies and got a bunch of seemingly credible people to say that it was all real, while covering up protests by other credible people, I'm not so sure I wouldn't have given them the benefit of the doubt myself. Who wants to think, even for a second, that in our nation, in our WH, that shit like this can be done? Have we EVER seen it this bad? *I* don't think so.

It's not Dems' fault they were given false and omissive information. What they deserve is NOT the blame for *'s lies, but support for saying 'I voted for it, and now I know I was wrong.'

Dems are not the enemy.

You want the best for this country? Then don't punish OUR SIDE for being human; for believing that NO ONE could possibly be that evil. They didn't invade iraq for lies and oil. BUSH** DID.

[Rainscents]

51. Bush made the final decision to take us into war...Remember,

he is THE only one who can do that! Bush did NOT follow through anything, he was suppose to go back to UN for 2nd vote and he knew, he would NOT get the support, since UN inspectors weren't finding WMD's! YOU CANNOT blame this shit on Democrats!

[nomatrix]

53. War started before Congressional approval

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped... /

-snip-

"But it's even more disturbing as we start learning that this administration began actively fighting the Iraq war well in advance of the March 2003 official attack--before both the October 2002 US congressional authorization and the November United Nations resolution requiring that Saddam Hussein open the country up to inspectors.

I follow Iraq pretty closely, but was taken aback when Charlie Clements, now head of the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee, described driving in Iraq months before the war ''and a building would just explode, hit by a missile from 30,000 feet." ''What is that building?" Clements would ask. ''Oh, that's a telephone exchange." Later, at a conference at Nevada's Nellis Air Force Base, Clements heard a US general boast ''that he began taking out assets that could help in resisting an invasion at least six months before war was declared."

Earlier this month, Jeremy Scahill wrote a powerful piece on the website of The Nation, describing a huge air assault in September 2002. ''Approximately 100 US and British planes flew from Kuwait into Iraqi airspace," Scahill writes. ''At least seven types of aircraft were part of this massive operation, including US F-15 Strike Eagles and Royal Air Force Tornado ground-attack planes. They dropped precision-guided munitions on Saddam Hussein's major western air-defense facility, clearing the path for Special Forces helicopters that lay in wait in Jordan. Earlier attacks had been carried out against Iraqi command and control centers, radar detection systems, Revolutionary Guard units, communication centers, and mobile air-defense systems. The Pentagon's goal was clear: Destroy Iraq's ability to resist."

Why aren't we talking about this? As Scahill points out, this was a month before the congressional vote, and two months before the UN resolution. Supposedly part of enforcing ''no fly zones," the bombings were actually systematic assaults on Iraq's capacity to defend itself. The United States had never declared war. Bush had no authorization, not even a fig leaf. He was simply attacking another nation because he'd decided to do so. This preemptive war preempted our own Congress, as well as international law."

[nomatrix]

54. Here is the article

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20050613/scahill

"It was a huge air assault: Approximately 100 US and British planes flew from Kuwait into Iraqi airspace. At least seven types of aircraft were part of this massive operation, including US F-15 Strike Eagles and Royal Air Force Tornado ground-attack planes. They dropped precision-guided munitions on Saddam Hussein's major western air-defense facility, clearing the path for Special Forces helicopters that lay in wait in Jordan. Earlier attacks had been carried out against Iraqi command and control centers, radar detection systems, Revolutionary Guard units, communication centers and mobile air-defense systems. The Pentagon's goal was clear: Destroy Iraq's ability to resist. This was war.

But there was a catch: The war hadn't started yet, at least not officially. This was September 2002--a month before Congress had voted to give President Bush the authority he used to invade Iraq, two months before the United Nations brought the matter to a vote and more than six months before "shock and awe" officially began.

At the time, the Bush Administration publicly played down the extent of the air strikes, claiming the United States was just defending the so-called no-fly zones. But new information that has come out in response to the Downing Street memo reveals that, by this time, the war was already a foregone conclusion and attacks were no less than the undeclared beginning of the invasion of Iraq."

[BigBearJohn]

55. Let's not forget the TSUNAMI of public opinion. Consider THIS scenario pls

Imagine being a Democrat leader right after 9/11.
The public is really scared (and who the hell could blame them?)
The public has been convinced by * that Hussein is ready to launch the BIG bomb.
The public is more than a bit shell-shocked and scared after 9/11...

(I mean, who would have believe 4 jets would have been rammed into
occupied buildings? Given the public's vulnerability at this time, it wouldn't take much
convincing for the public to believe that Hussein was ready use a few
nukes on us.)

When the public is scared out of their wits, it doesn't take much to plunge them into a panic.

AND you, being a lone dissenting Democrat, are going to stand up to this tidal wave of fear and anxiety...
a multi-million man mob carrying pitchforks and torches? hahahaha you
would be laughed out of office right after being tarred and feathered.