Thank the gods for John Conyers and Lynn Woolsey.
Conyer's investigation into voting disenfrachisement in Ohio cast doubt on Bush's unreelection. He has tried to break through the media indifference surrounding the Downing Street memo, the still warm gun that lays out grounds for a bill of impeachment against Bush. Conyer's letter to Bush, signed by 88 House members, directly asks the questions that few others in power have the cojones to ask:
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?
Conyers has been getting so many emails that his website was overwhelmed. If you want to join the movement to demand answers, go to the website and sign the letter, like 160,000 others have done.
Another strong voice to stop the war comes from Rep. Lynn Woolsey. Her House resolution to bring the troops home from the Iraq Crusade garnered 128 votes, about 2/3 of the House Democrats and 5 brave Republicans (including Walter "They're American Fries" Jones). From her speech to the House:
“My amendment expresses the sense of Congress that the President must develop a plan to bring our troops home, and that he must submit this plan to the appropriate committees in Congress.
“We can truly support our troops, by bringing them home. At the same time, withdrawing U.S. troops must not result in abandoning a country that has been devastated. We must assist Iraq, not through our military, but through international humanitarian efforts to rebuild their war-torn economic and physical infrastructure.
Our man Conyers said this about the vote on withdrawal:
“Yet, here are the members of the House of Representative who, under Article I Section 8 of this great Constitution, are the only ones who can declare war, and they’re saying we don’t even want to talk about a plan. … Congress can talk about this. Please, summon up your courage, that’s your job.”
Noticeably absent from these latest efforts to stop the war, and displaying distinct symptoms of a softening of the spine, are supposed leaders of the Democratic party. Three in particular seem unable to challenge the War Party.
House minority leader Nancy Pelosi voted against the Woolsey resolution and managed some saber rattling against Iran in a fawning speech to the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) that could have been taken from neocon talking points on the virtues of Zionism.
Howard Dean has lost his anti-war fervor, shrugging his shoulders and lamenting in RummmySpeak "Now that we're there, we're there and we can't get out." No, Howard, it's really quite simple. Declare victory and get the hell out. Find your voice. Scream it out, in California and Texas and New York...Yehhhhahhhhhahhh!
But the prize for weaseling goes to Hilllary Rodham Clinton in a CNN interview quoted by Arianna Huffington:
"You know, I am not one who feels comfortable setting exit strategies. We don't know what we're exiting from. We don't know what the situation is moving toward…. How do we know where we're headed, when we don't know where we are?"
Senator Clinton, we are in a brutal, illegal, immoral quagmire of a war that is murdering Iraqis and Americans, draining our treasury, staining our reputation, and endangering us more every day. We are headed toward disaster. And you don't feel comfortable? You can't see what's going on? You want to be president? The Dems threw up a candidate like this already. They don't need another.
So, give thanks for folks like Conyers and Woolsey and Jones. We need more of them. And shake your head in sad dismay at the pathetic pronouncements of wafflers and War Party supporters like Pelosi, Dean and Clinton. They've chosen complicity, not leadership, and the bloody responsibility that comes with it.
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