Friday, January 23, 2004

Hornswoggled Into War RHINO'S BLOG, 1/23/04 - "Hornswoggled Into War" FEATURED ARTICLES - Shia protesters step up demand for Iraq elections, UK Independent - About Those Neocons: Thinking Again, or Just Wondering? by Karen Kwiatkowski - Powell Retreats on Iraq-al Qaeda Link, by David Corn, The Nation QUOTE OF THE DAY "There is not--you know, I have not seen smoking-gun concrete evidence about the connection, but I think the possibility of such connections did exist and it was prudent to consider them at the time that we did." - - Secretary of State Colin Powell,        (Commenting last week on the report produced by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace that concluded there was no evidence of a prewar connection between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda and no evidence that Hussein had been likely to transfer weapons of mass destruction to Osama bin Laden's network. ) KNOW YOUR HISTORY - JANUARY 23rd 1951 -- US President Truman created the Commission on Internal Security and Individual Rights, to monitor the anti-Communist campaign. We could use one of those now. 1964 -- The 24th amendment to the US Constitution, eliminating the poll tax in federal elections, was ratified. Supposedly fixing the problem of money influencing our elections. 1988 -- More than 50,000 Israelis demonstrated in Tel Aviv to protest the treatment of Palestinians in the occupied territories. 1991 -- After some 12,000 sorties in the Gulf War, General Colin Powell, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, declared allied forces had achieved air superiority, and would focus air fire on Iraqi ground forces around Kuwait. No civilian body count was ever reported. SAME DAY -- Iraqi forces in Kuwait deliberately created a huge oil spill in the Persian Gulf. RHINO HERE: Slick as Texas owl shit is the shrub. (Tip o' the hat to Molly Ivins) But the people suffering the occupation don't buy his lines. Neither does most of the world. But what of the American people who are footing the BILLIONS worth of bills for the war? Do they really think "fighting for democracy" is a good reason to do without health care & good schools here at home? Or worse; lose sons & daughters forever? Half the people in the US eligible to vote, aren't registered. Half of those registered, don't vote. How many of our friends & relatives aren't registered to vote? And don't think voting matters? Well it does matter and this November, the country, nay, the world needs American voters to get off their asses & exercise the essence of democracy. This gang don't wanna go & the way to short circuit whatever their scam's gonna be this time is to have the people come out to vote in such record numbers that the exit polls will make any cheating transparent. Rhino urges - find out who's not planning to vote & encourage them to change their minds. Meanwhile... People keep on learnin',  Soldiers keep on warrin', Powers keep on lyin',  While your people keep on dyin' Teachers keep on teachin',  Preachers keep on preachin',  Lovers keep on lovin',  Believers keep on believin' Sleepers just stop sleepin' & the World keep on turnin'  (Tip o' the hat to Stevie Wonder) Shia protesters step up demand for Iraq elections By Patrick Cockburn in Baghdad, for the UK Independent, 20 January 2004 In their greatest show of political strength since the war tens of thousands of Iraqi Shia Muslims marched through Baghdad yesterday chanting slogans in favour of free elections for a new government. About 100,000 protesters marched through Baghdad to al-Mustansiriyah University shouting "Yes to elections" and "No to occupation". The Shia, believed to number some 15 to 16 million out of a total Iraqi population of 25 million, fear the US and its local allies will seek to rob them of power by appointing members of a new assembly and government to which the US has pledged to hand over power on 1 July. The demonstration was clearly aimed at Kofi Annan, the secretary general of the UN, seeking to persuade him not to endorse US plans for indirect elections. Mr Annan met Paul Bremer, the chief US official in Iraq, and a delegation from the US-selected Iraq Governing Council in New York yesterday... MORE AT: Shia Protesters Demand Election Karen Kwiatkowski ( ksusiek@shentel.net ) is a recently retired USAF lieutenant colonel, who spent her final four and a half years in uniform working at the Pentagon. She now lives with her freedom-loving family in the Shenandoah Valley.  Here she writes a blistering & fact filled reaction to the recent Carnegie Endowment for International Peace report which said what most of us knew all along; that there was no immediate threat, the intelligence cited was misrepresented, inspections were working & there's no Saddam - al Qaeda connection. About Those Neocons: Thinking Again, or Just Wondering? by Karen Kwiatkowski, LewRockwell.com The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace just published WMD in Iraq: Evidence and Implications. To paraphrase that lovable old Don Rumsfeld, the report summarizes what we knew, what we said about what we knew, what we imagined, what we said about what we imagined, and most significantly, what we didn't say but strongly insinuated to the Congress and the American people about what we knew not and only hopefully imagined. As the academics and politicians relax with after-dinner cigars and drinks, they may peruse at their leisure CEIP's findings, which track closely with what I saw inside the five-sided asylum in the last two years: Iraq WMD was not an immediate threat Inspections were working Intelligence failed and was misrepresented Terrorist connection missing Post-war WMD search ignored key resources War was not the best - or only - option Well, who really cares, right? So what if we lied about WMD, misled as to "war on terrorism" objectives, and wasted well over $200 billion we didn't have, deployed 150,000 troops, and killed over 500 of them (so far and not counting suicides, or the thousands maimed) unnecessarily. Look at the bright side - on March 24, George W. Bush confiscated Iraqi bank and national financial assets, including assets of the oil ministry. On May 22, George W. Bush became the proud new administrator of the Iraqi Development Fund, and future oil sales that would feed it. On August 28, George W. Bush made sure that all additional government and Ba-ath official property be transferred into the Fund. All Iraqi oil sales are back in dollars too. We broke it, we bought it, we switched it back to dollars... LOTS MORE HERE: http://www.lewrockwell.com/kwiatkowski/kwiatkowski60.html Today's RHINO'S BOTTOM LINE is by David Corn, the Washington editor of The Nation magazine. He's spent years analyzing the policies and pursuing the lies that spew out of the nation's capital. He is a novelist, biographer, and television and radio commentator who is able to both decipher and scrutinize Washington. His bio says, "he holds the politicians, policymakers and pundits accountable and reports the important facts and views that go uncovered elsewhere." Certainly true in the case of the pregnant silence, unheard inside the beltway, after General Powell admitted his gang had Hornswoggled the country into the Iraq war. Rhino's calling his Senators & Congressman today to say, "Where's the outrage?"  Let me know if you join me. David Corn has a new book on the NY Times Bestseller List: THE LIES OF GEORGE W. BUSH: MASTERING THE POLITICS OF DECEPTION (Crown Publishers). The Library Journal says, "Corn chronicles to devastating effect the lies, falsehoods, and misrepresentations....Corn has painstakingly unearthed a bill of particulars against the president that is as damaging as it is thorough." Check out:   http://www.bushlies.com . 8:51:28 AM    comment

RHINO'S BOTTOM LINE - Powell Retreats on Iraq-al Qaeda Link Powell Retreats on Iraq-al Qaeda Link by David Corn, The Nation, 01/15/2004 What's wrong with the Democrats in Washington? Why has presidential candidate Howard Dean, who was an establishment sort of Democrat as governor of Vermont, been able to tap into widespread disappointment and anger among grassroots Democrats who are frustrated with what Dean calls "those Washington Democrats"? Here is a small but telling explanation. Last week, Secretary of State Colin Powell held a wide-ranging press conference, his first in months. During this session, he was asked about a report produced by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace that concluded there was no evidence of a prewar connection between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda and no evidence that Hussein had been likely to transfer weapons of mass destruction to Osama bin Laden's network. Powell replied, "There is not--you know, I have not seen smoking-gun concrete evidence about the connection, but I think the possibility of such connections did exist and it was prudent to consider them at the time that we did." No concrete evidence? The possibility of such connections? That is not how Bush depicted the supposed link between Iraq's dictator and America's number-one foe. In a press conference in November 2002, he declared that Hussein was "dealing with" al Qaeda. And during his high-profile May 1, 2003, speech aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln--remember the flight suit, the "Mission Accomplished" banner?--Bush said that Hussein was an "ally" of al Qaeda... ...But Powell's admission...  provoked no ire among official Democrats in the capital. Why was that? After all, he was essentially confirming one of the most serious charges leveled against Bush: that he had hornswoggled the nation into war. In search of an explanation, I called a senior aide to the Democratic leadership in the Senate. Why, I asked, hadn't Senator Tom Daschle, the Democratic leader, said anything?... IT'S ALL AT: http://www.thenation.com/capitalgames/index.mhtml?pid=1183 "RHINO'S BLOG" is the responsibility of Gary Rhine. (rhino@kifaru.com) Feedback, and requests to be added or deleted from the list are encouraged. SEARCH BLOG ARCHIVES / SURF RHINO'S LINKS, AT: http://www.rhinosblog.info RHINO'S OTHER WEB SITES: http://www.dreamcatchers.org (INDIGENOUS ASSISTANCE & INTERCULTURAL DIALOG) http://www.kifaru.com (NATIVE AMERICAN RELATIONS VIDEO DOCUMENTARIES) Articles are reprinted under Fair Use Doctrine of international copyright law. http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.html All copyrights belong to original publisher. Tell a friend about Rhino's Blog 6:38:39 AM    comment

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