Ok, so we are making progress. We didn't learn that the National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq was completely wrong until after we had invaded the country in the worst foreign policy debacle in American history. Now we learn from the just released National Intelligence Estimate -- "Iran: Nuclear Intentions and Capabilities" - that Iran halted its nuclear program in the fall of 2003, contrary to the previous NIE report and the Bush administration saber rattling.
Ok, so we are making progress -- our intelligence agencies don't want to be caught yet again providing this trigger-happy administration with yet another false justification for a disastrous war. How about if the Congress follows suit and undoes its complicity with what could be an even worse disaster.
Don't get too comfortable with this new NIE report. It is not likely to dissuade those itching for an attack on Iran. The neocons continue to "pray every day" for a military strike on Iran, as neocon godfather and Rudy Giuliani adviser Norman Poderetz recently told President Bush.
Freedom's Watch, the new advocacy group connected to Vice President Dick Cheney, has publicly declared its intention to raise tens of millions for an intense PR campaign featuring ads in key media markets across the country. Their number one priority? The threat posed by Iran.
And, don't expect anything reasonable from Congress anytime soon. The only thing that they have been willing to do on Iran is pass the Kyl-Lieberman amendment in the Senate declaring an Iranian government agency as a "terrorist group," a move that Senator Jim Webb describes as "tantamount to a declaration of war." The House defeated a measure demanding that the president can only attack Iran with an authorization from Congress.
What we need to be demanding now -- particularly in light of this recent NIE correction on the threat of a nuclear armed Iran -- is that Congress reverse its dreadful track record and prohibit the President from attacking Iran without explicit authorization from Congress (hey -- remember the Constitution?) and insist the United States immediately begin to pursue vigorous and broad diplomacy with Iran -- starting with direct negotiations without preconditions.
Getting Congress to reverse course and back off its dreadful record on Iran is not going to be easy. But, we need to start. That is why the Win Without War coalition will host a live web-streamed National Town Hall Meeting tomorrow night from the Jack Morton Auditorium on the campus of George Washington University in Washington, D.C. Collin Powell's former chief-of-staff at the State Department, Col Lawrence Wilkerson and Lt. General Robert Gard, former President of the National Defense University, will be featured. They will be discussing the prospects and the consequences of a military strike on Iran. And, we will ALL be talking about what we need to do to reverse the wrongheaded direction of Congress and the White House on this issue.
Join us on-line at www.standupcongress.org, or, if you are near Washington, join us at the Jack Morton Auditorium on the corner of 21st and H NW. It is time!
DO YOU SEE HOW THE LIES SPREAD?!
To me the main point of yesterdays news conference and follow up with Rockefeller and Bond on PBS repeating the mantra of “faulty information†as the root cause of the Iraq invasion and not lies. The impeachment movement must be picking up steam.
The NIE on Iraq was not wrong! It was manipulated and changed by Cheney et al - in other words lies, betrayal, and , with Halliburton locating in Dubai, TREASON!
They out-ed a covert CIA operative in an attempt to cover their lies - this is a “high crimeâ€!
IMPEACH!
Except Bush has upgraded the spirit to "God talks to him and tells him what to do, as in his justification for attacking Iraq." This sells better to the Christian far right lunatics in lieu of plain old mind readers and mental telepatists. If Jesus says so, who are we to argue with what Jesus would have done.
Translates to more wars and killing in the name of God throughout the history of man.
The message is not the good news that Iran is not currently building a nuclear weapon, which is what we were originally led to believe but that they want to build a nuclear weapon, maybe not now but soon.
The Whitehouse is able to read the minds of our enemies and it finds that their thoughts are full of boiling evil plots. The use of mind reading in the Bush Whitehouse reminds me of the Reagan Whitehouse when the occasional medium was brought in to advise on the best prospects for legislation or travel. The spirit world is a mighty Republican tool.
We make a big show of patting down and delaying travelers; we spy on each other and too willingly allow government to scare us into suspecting each other. But the most egregious aspect is the emphasis on offense, instead. Our traipsing around the world to, I guess, root out and destroy all the terrorist who would do harm to the American way of life. Good luck with that.
Someone please come up with a ballpark figure of all the money -- putting aside the cost in human lives and opportunities lost -- we have spent on defense of this country over the past 50 years. Defense Dept, CIA, DIA, NSA, etc. How many trillions have been poured into guns and bullets and aircraft carriers, soldiers, spies and bureaucrats in the name of defending our country. And today, in 2007, after all the expense and at the inevitable cost of short-changing other long-festering problems, we're scared witless by a ragtag band of "evil doers". Boy, talk about money misspent.
Now I'm sure we've gained some security over the decades by this effort but, please, we need to re-examine our priorities and our sense of proportion in our responses to the challenges we face. Our entire culture in the 21st century cannot be defined by the threat of terrorism, real or imagined.
Yeah, I'm signing on to your coalition.
Besides, we have already established that we can invade a country with oil resources on bogus information and stay there because we aren't losers, so the Iran invasion/occupation is still a go. Otherwise the expense of all those aircraft carriers in the Persian Gulf will be considered a waste.
But, it is unfortunate that the NIE report couldn't have waited until after the invasion.
human death and blood mean nothing to these people.
two soldiers a day dying in iraq is chicken feed to these folks.
many neo con websites are bragging that as many soldiers die when we are not in a war. arms and legs and faces blown off means nothing to these neo con war mongers.
years of unchecked capitalism then reagan put capitalism on steroids and wow we have a soulless america.
dont look for christianty to bail us out. it did not stop hitler and will not stop greed is good imperialists americans.
what will stop our imperialism? bankrupt economic system which will lead to fascism.