connecting*the*dots

(originally uploaded by tgbusill)

The Mercury News
Senate reports say Saddam rejected cooperating with terrorists
by Warren P. Strobel and Margaret Talev

WASHINGTON - Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein rejected pleas for assistance from Osama bin Laden and tried to capture terrorist Abu Musab al Zarqawi when he was in Iraq, a Senate Intelligence Committee report released Friday found, casting further doubt on the Bush administration’s rationale for invading Iraq.

President Bush and other administration officials repeatedly cited Saddam’s alleged ties to radical Islamic terrorists before the March 2003 invasion as one reason to take military action against Iraq.

The 150-page report said the administration’s claims were untrue. “Postwar findings indicate that Saddam Hussein was distrustful of al-Qaida and viewed Islamic extremists as a threat to his regime, refusing all requests from al-Qaida to provide material or operational support,” the report said.

The report was released along with a second one that said false information from the exile group Iraqi National Congress, led by Ahmad Chalabi, was widely distributed in prewar intelligence reports and used to support intelligence assessments about Iraq’s weapons and links to terrorism. Intelligence officials repeatedly warned that the INC was unreliable, but White House and Pentagon officials ignored the warnings.

The reports are part of a five-report study that the Senate Intelligence Committee has undertaken into the Bush administration’s use of intelligence before the invasion of Iraq.

The study has left the committee badly divided. Three reports remain classified, including one comparing prewar statements by Bush administration officials to intelligence available at the time. Democrats have accused Republicans of delaying the reports until after the November congressional elections.

[…]

Ain’t it grand that it took the Senate Intelligence Committee only 3.5 years, close to 3,000 dead US soldiers, more than 50,000 dead Iraqi civilians and upwards of $500 billion dollars floating in the wind to confirm what mid-east experts have been saying since 2003? Everyone and their mother knew that Saddam wanted nothing to do with al Qaeda; I mean, even Hardball scooped these jokers a year ago.

Alright, so it’s official. Now, which Senator is going to put country ahead of political aspirations and make a eloquent, yet vociferous call for the arrest of both George W. Bush and Dick Cheney?

People get locked up in America every day for the dumbest of reasons, all the while this administration knowingly schemed to wage war under false pretenses, which directly caused the deaths of upwards of a hundred thousand people… and there’s no chance of accountability.

I’m dead serious; which of these elected representatives is going to step up and make a passionate call for accountability? I mean, after the mid-term elections of course…

And people ask me why I’m so cynical. Now excuse me while I go throw up my dinner.

Another milestone in Iraq has come and gone. As of yesterday, America’s occupation in Iraq has officially eclipsed the length of time America spent in World War II.

No matter your personal view on the potential of terrorist tactics, we’re not at war to stop an advancing fascist or an existing genocide dead in its tracks (such as modern-day fascist Kim Jong-il of North Korea or the current genocide in Darfur).

There’s only one similarity between WWII and the occupation of Iraq; in both cases, it took an attack on US soil to rally and motivate the American public to back entering an armed conflict. Of course, the attack on Pearl Harbor directly emanated from the ongoing conflict of WWII, whereas the emotional ties between the events of 9/11 and the perception of Iraqi leadership remain simply that — emotional.

Iraq has never been an immediate threat to our nation; no weapons of mass destruction ever threatened our safety from afar. Could that situation have changed for the worse over time? Sure, but so could any number of scenarios in the world, which is exactly why the tactic of preventive war is considered state-sponsored terrorism in many people’s eyes.

Fact: The combined death toll from all major, classically defined terrorist activities over the past twenty years pales in comparison to the loss of life at the hands of the Nazi fascist state.

This administration twisted false stories of Iraq hunting for yellow cake in Niger into a narrative that fit our administration’s desire to go to war in Iraq and delivered this false case to Congress to justify an invasion.

In a post-9/11 America still freshly licking its wounds, we all should have known what would happen within our political arena:

Who Lied To Whom?: …”Two days later, Secretary of State Colin Powell, appearing before a closed hearing of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, also cited Iraq’s attempt to obtain uranium from Niger as evidence of its persistent nuclear ambitions. The testimony from Tenet and Powell helped to mollify the Democrats, and two weeks later the resolution passed overwhelmingly, giving the President a congressional mandate for a military assault on Iraq.”…

When that cover was blown by, well, reality, our government simply began to whisper false ties to 9/11 to go after a client-state that refused to play nice anymore, all beginning with its 1991 invasion of Kuwait.

What we have “accomplished” in Iraq since the occupation began in 2003 is quite amazing, actually. A Shi’ite majority has now been voted into power — something that no US planner would have hoped for, but constitutes a perfect example of what democracy at the end of the barrel of a M-16 will get you.

Essentially, we’ve backed the formation of a government and a constitution that leans in the opposite direction from modernity and strengthened the potential for a collaborative, radical mid-east region, at the cost of more than 2 billion dollars per week, while losing close to 3,000 US patriots and killing at least 50,000 Iraqi civilians.

One can only imagine how that loss of life is going to be avenged.

(from Nas)

Michael Duffy, TIME
The Shame Of Kilo Company

[…]

But one morning last November, some members of Kilo Company apparently didn’t attempt to distinguish between enemies and innocents. Instead, they seem to have gone on the worst rampage by U.S. service members in the Iraq war, killing as many as 24 civilians in cold blood. The details of what happened in Haditha were first disclosed in March by TIME’s Tim McGirk and Aparisim Ghosh, and their reporting prompted the military to launch an inquiry into the civilian deaths. The darkest suspicions about the killings were confirmed last week, when members of Congress who were briefed on the two ongoing military investigations disclosed that at least some members of a Marine unit may soon be charged in connection with the deaths of the Iraqis — and that the charges may include murder, which carries the death penalty. “This was a small number of Marines who fired directly on civilians and killed them,” said Representative John Kline, a Minnesota Republican and former Marine who was briefed two weeks ago by Marine Corps officials. “This is going to be an ugly story.”

[…]

At what point do we, as a nation, realize that our occupation of Iraq is only breeding more violent insurgents and future terrorists? And if this story is true, can you blame them for wanting revenge?

On a weekend where we remember the brave men and women who have served and/or died to protect what we know and love as America, I wonder… are we still that same America? Have we ever been?

Ethan covered the raid of the Kenya Television Network and the East African Standard newspaper earlier in the week, but only had access to vidcaps of the event. Well, earlier today Xeni Jardin pointed Boing Boing readers to the YouTube video of the security cameras. Here it is:

Can you imagine this happening at CBS?