...I'm okay with being REALITY-based.




Tuesday, February 03, 2004
      ( 11:07 AM )
 
It's Time For Action

I received notice this morning from MoveOn.Org about the new effort to urge Congress to censure the president. If you don't get MoveOn's mail, I strongly suggest you sign up. This is the new activism for progressive Americans who want to collectively put pressure on government. Here is MoveOn's plea:

It's clear that we've been misled:

David Kay said last week, "I'm personally convinced
that there were not large stockpiles of newly
produced weapons of mass destruction," and
"We don't find the people, the documents or the
physical plants that you would expect to find if
the production was going on." Kay said these
things shortly after resigning from his post as
Bush's chief weapons inspector in Iraq.

Bush, in his 2003 State of the Union address,
said, "the British government has learned that
Saddam Hussein recently sought significant
quantities of uranium from Africa." Yet Ambassador
Joe Wilson, who was sent to Niger in February
2002 to determine whether Iraq was trying to
purchase uranium materials there, concluded
that "intelligence related to Iraq's nuclear
weapons program was twisted to exaggerate
the Iraqi threat."

A CIA report in February 2003 said: "We do
not have any direct evidence that Iraq has
used the period since [1998] to reconstitute its
Weapons of Mass Destruction programs."

It's also clear that the misleading was deliberate:

The respected Carnegie Endowment for
International Peace recently found that the
administration "systematically misrepresented
the threat" from Iraq.

The basis for President Bush's African uranium
claim was known at the time to be forged and not
credible. "Top White House officials knew that the
CIA seriously disputed the claim that Saddam
Hussein was seeking uranium in Africa long before
the claim was included in Bush's January address
to the nation," according to the Washington Post.

Secretary of State Colin Powell became alarmed at
the level of intelligence distortion. When he read the
first draft of his speech to the UN -- prepared for
Powell by Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff
-- he was so upset that he lost his temper, throwing
several pages in the air and declaring, "I'm not reading
this. This is bullsh--."

Our democracy only works when we know the truth.
We now know President Bush and his administration
deliberately misled Congress and the American people.
Censure is the least we should expect in response.

I of course signed the petition. But I also added a letter to my representatives, one which I will also send separately to them again:

"It is unconscionable that Congress should allow the blatant lying of the President to the American people and to Congress about the reasons for war to go unaccounted for. There are only two options for what occurred: either the President lied to us directly or the President did not seek out vital information before committing our troops to war and to certain death. Either option is deserving of censure by the Congress. However, we know the 2nd to be false because the one example of Mr. Wilson's information being ignored shows us that the President did indeed have the information he needed to make the decision about war.

I urge you to censure the President for, amongst other things: lying to the American people, lying to Congress, manipulating UN decisions, unnecessarily committing our country to war, and the killing of over 500 GIs and the devastating injuries of thousands more. These results cannot go without accountability by the President. Congress must take action NOW to preserve the integrity of the office of the President and the standing of our country amongst the nations of the world. Accountability is in your hands."

Join the MoveOn censure movement, write to your representatives and then pass it on to a friend or two. This lazy-ass, non-committed Congress will do nothing in our interests if we don't force them into it. It's about time they start listening to us, and it's about time we start holding their jobs in front of them if they don't like what we're saying. We have the power if we do this together. So Mama says: get to work!

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