Sunday Rapid Response: Evidence of war

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Oregon Report — Sunday, November 6, 2005
This horrific picture of dead Iraqi children (click photo for info)--an AP photo unlikely to ever be shown on the corporate media--shows the true cost of Bush's war. As long as we are there as an occupying force, the insurgency will continue to destroy the country.

1. Front-page article adds to evidence of pre-war lies
2. Brooksie sinks to a new low as GOP shill
3. David Sarasohn on Alito’s brave new world of “marital integrity”
4. Great work, RR’ers

1. Front-page Times article adds to evidence of pre-war lies
US report doubted key intelligence before war
It’s not on the front page of the Times, but it is on p. 1 of the Oregonian.
…The document provides the earliest and strongest indication of doubts voiced by American intelligence agencies about Mr. Libi’s credibility. Without mentioning him by name, President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, Colin L. Powell, then secretary of state, and other administration officials repeatedly cited Mr. Libi’s information as “credible’’ evidence that Iraq was training Al Qaeda members in the use of explosives and illicit weapons.

Note the GOP’s pathetically weak defensive talking point: But Senate Republicans, put on the defensive when Democrats forced a closed session of the Senate this week to discuss the issue, have been arguing that Republicans were not alone in making prewar assertions about Iraq, illicit weapons and terrorism that have since been discredited.

Right. They were misled by the Bush Administration, as were the American people. (I’m not suggesting letters fall into this trap. Just hammer on the Bush Administration’s lies.)

They’re crumbling, folks. Let’s keep pounding and demanding the truth.

Your thoughts:
letters@nytimes.com
letters@news.oregonian.com
Contact your elected representatives
Or contact your local paper
Drop a quick line to national media

2. Brooksie sinks to a new low as GOP shill

Coincidentally (not), the same GOP talking point is amplified in a Nov. 3 David Brooks column reprinted in the Oregonian today, “Harry Reid springs baroque fantasies from Clinton era.” (sorry, it’s subscription only online.)

Brooks tries very hard to mock Harry Reid as a crazy conspiracy theorist “sitting alone at his kitchen table at 4 a.m.” Wrong. Harry Reid is standing in the bright light of high noon, with millions of cheering Americans standing behind him.

Brooks cherry-picks and takes out of context quotes from the Clinton era warning about Saddam’s potential re: WMDs. One small problem: these quotes come from BEFORE the dismantling of Saddam’s WMD programs; the competent professionals in the Clinton administration never falsely claimed Saddam had the ability to strike his neighbors, let alone America; and the Clinton administration never used their conjectures about Saddam’s potential threat toward the end of promoting a war and occupation of Iraq. David Brooks is intellectually dishonest and morally bankrupt.

Your thoughts:
letters@nytimes.com
dabrooks@nytimes.com (be sure to stay very calm and polite if you write him, and don’t waste time crafting a detailed rebuttal…just let him know we’re on to him and/or it ain’t working)
letters@news.oregonian.com

3. David Sarasohn on Alito’s brave new world of “marital integrity”
Our own, “good” David outdoes himself today with a light touch on a very serious matter. Bravo, sir.
"You have constitutional rights, dearest, pending notification"
davidsarasohn@letters.news.oregonian
letters@news.oregonian.com

4. Great work RR’ers!
I hope I am not missing anyone—if you get published, please forward the link to published@rapidresponsenetwork.org and cc: me at or@rapidresponsenetwork.org so we can track our successes!

As always, remember that even if you are not published, your letter still counts! Your letter helps create a critical mass to get others expressing a similar view published, and the numbers from our side helps influence both the editorial board and public opinion. Keep writing!
Yesterday RR’er Bea Kohnle got in her great letter on the Bush Medicare mess: "Try hyperventilating"
And today we have Betsy Salter’s excellent "Save ANWR from drilling."

And Alan Peck is cited in the weekly letter “tally” box: “Libby’s obstruction is about compromising national security and lying about national security, war, and lying about war.”

By the way, one might want to respond to the other writer quoted in the tally box, who uses prosecutor Fitzgerald’s comment that “the indictment is not about the war” to argue against the obvious connection between Treasongate and the Bush Administration lies leading us to war.

Yes, Fitzgerald’s indictment is very narrowly and carefully focused on Libby’s perjury and obstruction of justice. Libby’s obstruction made it impossible to see the larger picture—Fitzgerald compares it to throwing sand in the eyes of the umpire. But even though Fitzgerald, for the success of his case, must scrupulously avoid making the connection, the connection is there for any observer to make—at least those not blinded by ideological self-delusion.
Here are key passages from the transcript of Fitzgerald’s 10/28 press conference:

In this case, it's a lot more serious than baseball. And the damage wasn't to one person. It wasn't just Valerie Wilson. It was done to all of us.
And as you sit back, you want to learn: Why was this information going out? Why were people taking this information about Valerie Wilson and giving it to reporters? … And was this something where he intended to cause whatever damage was caused?
Or did they intend to do something else and where are the shades of gray?
And what we have when someone charges obstruction of justice, the umpire gets sand thrown in his eyes. He's trying to figure what happened and somebody blocked their view.
As you sit here now, if you're asking me what his motives were, I can't tell you; we haven't charged it.
So what you were saying is the harm in an obstruction investigation is it prevents us from making the fine judgments we want to make.
I also want to take away from the notion that somehow we should take an obstruction charge less seriously than a leak charge.
This is a very serious matter and compromising national security information is a very serious matter. But the need to get to the bottom of what happened and whether national security was compromised by inadvertence, by recklessness, by maliciousness is extremely important. We need to know the truth…..
But if what we allege in the indictment is true, then what is charged is a very, very serious crime that will vindicate the public interest in finding out what happened here.

Share your thoughts:
letters@news.oregonian.com

Never give up.
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