Left Out examines news and opinions left out of the mainstream media. Left Out is a public affairs program on WRCT 88.3FM co-hosted by Bob Harper and Danny Sleator. Today's program is produced by Quinten Steenhuis. Listeners are invited to call the program at (412) 268-WRCT (9728), or to send email.
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Track 1: Galloway, Schwarz (Downing Street) (Streaming, Download)
Track 2: Military Solution Doubted (Streaming, Download)
Knight-Ritter -- the only mainstream news outlet in the US who actually questioned the Iraq war -- published another hard-hitting article yesterday. They quote a number of US generals in Iraq who admit that what they are doing cannot stop the insurgency, and is bound to fail.
"We can't kill them all," Wellman said. "When I kill one, I create three."
On May 17th, MP George Galloway testified before the Norm Coleman's senate committee investigating the oil for food "scandal". Here's a partial transcript of his testimony. You can listen to the last four minutes here and watch this excerpt here.
This is incredibly articulate and powerful testimony, which exposes Coleman for the fool that he is, and exposes how fradulent the entire US policy in Iraq is. Did it ever get any replay in the mainstream US media beyond the original appearance on MSNBC?
Here's Galloway's full opening statement in in mp3 format. It's about 20 minutes long.
Here's the full testimony in realplayer format from cspan.
As we at Left Out have been saying all along, it's absolutely clear that the US intended to invade Iraq since right after 9/11. Saddam's WMDs, terrorist ties, and nuclear capability were non-existant, and were invented after the fact to justify the war.
Note that a war of aggression is the supreme international crime.
To initiate a war of aggression is the supreme international crime, differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole. from the Declaration in the Judgment of the International War Crimes Tribunal at Nuremberg, 1946.
In any event, if what we believe is true, it's certainly an impeachable offence, because of monumental lying that went on, and because of the horrendous consequences of these lies.
Now comes the Downing Street Memo, which was published by the Times of London on May 1, 2005. This is the minutes of a meeting of the Blair's cabinet that took place on July 13, 2002. Among many other important details, the memo states that "It seemed clear that Bush had made up his mind to take military action ...". Also the "intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy."
Everything in the memo is completely consistent with other sources, such as Richard Clark, Paul O'Neill, Scott Ritter, etc. What's new here is that it is coming from an OFFICIAL SOURCE. The authenticity of the memo is undisputed. So far, neither Bush nor Blair have given a substantive response to it.
After being almost igored for more than a month, the leaked Downing Street Memo is finally starting to get some traction in the US. (Of course we covered it. See Left Out for May 3.)
Today on Left Out we'll discuss the story with Jonathan Schwarz. Schwarz is a consultant with AfterDowningStreet.org, a coalition of peace, veteran, and military family groups calling for a Resolution of Inquiry to be introduced by the House Judiciary Committee into whether President Bush committed impeachable offenses in the lead up to the invasion of Iraq.
Schwarz has written for the New Yorker, New York Times, Atlantic, Slate, Wall Street Journal, and many other publications. His personal website is www.tinyrevolution.com, named after something said by George Orwell: "Every joke is a tiny revolution."
Links for this story:
The web site AfterDowningStreet.org
Ministers were told of need for Gulf war 'excuse', an article by Michael Smith appearing June 12 in the Times of London.
Ray McGovern has an excellent series of articles on this in www.tompaine.com.
Proof Bush Fixed the Facts May 4, 2005
Downing Street II June 13, 2005
Counterspin audio interview with David Swanson, a founder of After Downing Street.
Michael Kinsley, a "liberal" of CrossFire fame (and currently the editorial page editor of the LA Times) wrote a piece in the Washington Post dismissing the memo, and defending the media's act of ignoring it. The stupidity of his analysis was exposed by Bob Summerby in The Daily Howler.
Congressman John Conyers has written a letter to President Bush, demanding an a response to the memo. You can see and sign the letter here. Originally Conyers was only trying to get 100,000 signatures. Now he has over a half million and wants a million by Thursday.
Truth Out
Common Dreams
Information Clearinghouse
Cursor
Tom Paine
The Independent
The Guardian
Consortium News