A surprise


AlterNet publishes an article calling the Democrats to account for their own forgotten history.
I didn't expect this Jeremey Scahill piece on AlterNet.

Now he does have his facts a little mixed up (Madeleine Albright was Secretary of State not UN Ambassador) and I don't agree with all of his opinions about corruption in the Bush Administration, but he is one of the very very few on the left to acknowledge that there actually was history in Iraq between 1992 and 2000. For that alone he should be commended.

As disingenuous as the Administration's claims that Iraq had WMDs is the flimsy claim by Democratic lawmakers that they were somehow duped into voting for the war. The fact is that Iraq posed no threat to the United States in 2003 any more than it did in 1998 when President Clinton bombed Baghdad. John Kerry and his colleagues knew that. The Democrats didn't need false intelligence to push them into overthrowing Saddam Hussein's regime. It was their policy; a policy made the law of the land not under George W. Bush, but under President Bill Clinton when he signed the 1998 Iraq Liberation Act, formally initiating the process of regime change in Iraq.

Manipulated intelligence is but a small part of a bigger, bipartisan 15-year assault on Iraq's people. If the Democrats really want to look at how America was led into this war, they need to go back further than the current president's inauguration.

As bloody and deadly as the occupation has been, it was Bill Clinton who refined the art of killing innocent Iraqis following the Gulf War. One of his first acts as president was to bomb Iraq, following the alleged assassination plot against George HW Bush. Clinton's missiles killed the famed Iraqi painter Leila al Attar as they smashed into her home. Clinton presided enthusiastically over the most deadly and repressive regime of economic sanctions in history -- his UN ambassador Madeline Albright calling the reported deaths of half a million children "worth the price." Clinton initiated the longest sustained bombing campaign since Vietnam with his illegal no-fly zone bombings, attacking Iraq once every three days for the final years of his presidency. It was under Clinton that Ahmed Chalabi was given tens of millions of dollars and made a key player in shaping Washington's Iraq policy. It was Clinton that mercilessly attacked Iraq in December of 1998, destroying dozens of Baghdad buildings and killing scores of civilians. It was Clinton that codified regime change in Iraq as US policy. Bush ordered the invasion of Iraq but he could not have done it without the years of groundwork laid by Clinton and the Democrats. How ironic it was recently to hear Clinton call the war "a big mistake."

Even if I don't agree with them entirely, it's great to see people of principle calling their own party leadership to account because those leaders have abandoned honor. It is supposed to be a representative government after all.

While I do think that Mr. Scahill makes some great points, he limits himself by concentrating on the last 15 years.

Realistically, we have one party, the statist party. The Republicans and Democrats are just the parlor trick to make us think that we have a choice.

Want a real choice? Try None of the Above. Don't buy into the nonsense that one party will fix the excesses of the other. Case in point, the War on Drugs. Arguably one of the worst legacies from Ronald Reagan's presidency. But Bill Clinton expanded it.

If you really want to make the politicos nervous, talk about how the state and national party machines are in direct violation of the RICO Act and ask the local U.S. Attorney to investigate.

— NeoWayland

Posted: Fri - November 25, 2005 at 04:36 AM  Tag


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