| Home Front: Politix |
| The Nominee Who Lobbied Herself |
| 2009-02-04 |
| A seemingly innocuous letter sent to the Clerk of the House of Representatives last Thursday by President Obama's Secretary of Labor nominee Hilda Solis raises serious and troubling legal questions about her nomination and apparent violation of House ethics rules. Not only was she involved with a private organization that was lobbying her fellow legislators on a bill that she has cosponsored, but she apparently kept her involvement secret and failed to reveal a clear conflict of interest. I see BHO's nominees are consistently loose with ethics. Solis was a co-sponsor in 2007 of the so-called "Employee Free Choice Act," the card check legislation that would effectively eliminate the secret ballot and destroy the ability of employees to make an anonymous decision (without fear of retribution) on whether they want to join a union. She was also a co-sponsor of the Public Safety Employer-Employee Cooperation Act, legislation that would force states to allow public safety officers to form unions. At the same time, however, Solis was a board member of a pro-union organization, American Rights at Work, that has been lobbying Congress on both of these bills. According to a letter filed by Solis with the House Clerk on January 29, 2009, she was not just a director of the ARW, along with fellow travelers like David Bonior, Julian Bond, and John Sweeney, she was actually the treasurer. In other words, she is the official legally charged with the fiduciary duty of approving and signing off on all spending by the organization. And to make matters worse, she did not reveal to her colleagues in the House of Representatives that membership on her financial disclosure forms, which may constitute a separate ethical violation. |
| Link |
| Home Front: Politix |
| Not the Change You Hoped For |
| 2008-12-07 |
| Really an Opinion piece, but it seems perfect for the new category... The more things change, the more they stay . . . well, you know. And looking at President-elect Barack Obama's top appointments, it's easy to wonder whether convention has triumphed over change - and centrists over progressives. A quick run-down: Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, who supported the Iraq war until she initiated her presidential bid, has been handed the Cabinet's big plum: secretary of state. And Bush's second defense secretary, Robert Gates, will become Obama's first defense secretary. The Obama foreign policy adviser regarded as the most liberal in his inner circle, Susan E. Rice, has been picked for the U.N. ambassador slot. Obama is elevating this job to Cabinet rank, but he's still sending Rice to New York - and in politics and policy, proximity to power matters. For national security adviser, Obama has picked James L. Jones. The retired four-star general was not hawkish on the Iraq war and seems to be a non-ideologue who possesses the right experience for the job. But he probably would have ended up in a McCain administration, and his selection has not heartened progressives. Obama's economic team isn't particularly liberal, either. Lawrence H. Summers, who as President Bill Clinton's Treasury secretary opposed regulating the new-fangled financial instruments that greased the way to the subprime meltdown, will chair Obama's National Economic Council. To head Treasury, Obama has tapped Timothy F. Geithner, the president of the New York Federal Reserve, who helped oversee the financial system as it collapsed. Each is close to Robert Rubin, another former Clinton Treasury secretary, a director of bailed-out Citigroup and a poster boy for both the corporate wing of the Democratic Party and discredited Big Finance. Obama's Economic Recovery Advisory Board will be guided by Paul Volcker, the former Fed chairman whose controversial tight-money policies ended the stagflation crisis of the 1970s but led to a nasty recession. (A genuinely progressive economist, Jared Bernstein, will receive a less prominent White House job: chief economic adviser to Vice President Joe Biden.) It's no surprise that many progressives are - depending on whom you ask - disappointed, irritated or fit to be tied. Sure, Obama's appointments do represent change - that is, change from the widely unpopular Bush-Cheney status quo. But do these appointments amount to the kind of change that progressives, who were an essential part of Obama's political base during the campaign, can really believe in? Perhaps Obama is trying to pull off something subtle - a sort of stealth liberalism draped in bipartisan centrism. But it's understandable that progressives are worried. "I feel incredibly frustrated," OpenLeft blogger Chris Bowers exclaimed. "Even after two landslide elections in a row, are our only governing options as a nation either all right-wing Republicans, or a centrist mixture of Democrats and Republicans? Isn't there ever a point when we can get an actual Democratic administration?" Only of one is voted it, dipstick. And he asks, "Why isn't there a single member of Obama's cabinet who will be advising him from the left?" Writers at the Nation have decried Obama's national security team as a "kettle of hawks," denounced his economic aides as acolytes of "recycled Clintonism" who fancy "straight-up neoliberal deference to the market," and assailed the retaining of Gates as a move that "has a dispiriting, stay-the-course feel to it." The other day, two prominent labor officials who toiled mighty hard for Obama during the campaign told me they had this message for the new president: Please, please give us David Bonior as labor secretary. They were referring to the populist former House member who has been a leading critic of NAFTA-like trade pacts. "Don't we deserve at least one Cabinet appointment?" one remarked. I, too, have huffed about Obama's staffing decisions. It remains a mystery to me why Obama would want to bring into his Big Tent the Clinton circus, which frequently features excessive spin, backstabbing, leaking and messy melodrama. Sen. Clinton is a smart woman who has stature and globetrotting experience. But as health-care czar in her husband's administration, she set back that cause, which is near and dear to the hearts of progressives, by nearly two decades. Also unsettling is Obama's decision to re-up Gates at the Pentagon. Gates is certainly an improvement on his predecessor, Donald Rumsfeld. He's no ideologue. And by placing a Bush appointee who happens to be pragmatic in charge of withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq, Obama might avoid a bruising political wrangle over his Iraq policy. But on Gates's watch, there has been little, if any, progress in Afghanistan. And Gates has not truly taken on the Pentagon's biggest domestic problem: its bloated, out-of-control budget. Obama transition team officials reviewing the Defense Department have told colleagues that they are stunned by the mess they are finding. With the military budget expanding wildly, largely because of hundreds of billions of dollars in cost overruns for questionable weapons programs, the Pentagon is the federal agency most in need of change. That change has to be driven from the top. As for Summers, he blew one of the more significant policy calls of the 1990s. When regulators wanted to rein in the use of derivatives, he let the free market rule. Now he's being rewarded in an it-takes-a-thief-to-catch-a-thief manner. And the fierce partisan who will be managing the White House for Obama, future chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, was known during the Clinton years as the White House aide who said no to bolder, progressive policy initiatives in favor of modest, centrist proposals. So with these hawkish, Rubin-esque, middle-of-the-road picks, has Obama abandoned the folks who brought him to the dance? When asked at a Nov. 26 news conference whether his appointments of old Washington hands indicated that his administration was not going to be a festival of change, Obama replied, "What we are going to do is combine experience with fresh thinking. But understand where the - the vision for change comes from first and foremost. It comes from me." His job, he added, was to "make sure . . . that my team is implementing" his policies. In other words, la change, c'est moi. Page 2 at link |
| Link |
| Home Front: Politix |
| Bonior 'proud' of '02 Iraq trip |
| 2008-03-29 |
 Former Michigan U.S. Rep. David Bonior said Thursday he is "proud" of the controversial trip to Iraq that he and two other Democratic congressmen took in 2002 and wishes more Americans had listened to their concerns about the "horrendous" impact another war in Iraq would have on children there. Accounts of the trip resurfaced Wednesday when a federal indictment unsealed in Detroit alleged that what appears to be the same trip was secretly paid for by the Iraqi Intelligence Service. |
| Link |
| Home Front: Politix | |||||||
| Saddam paid for Congresscritter visit in run up to war | |||||||
| 2008-03-27 | |||||||
An indictment unsealed in Detroit accuses Muthanna Al-Hanooti, a member of a Michigan nonprofit group, of arranging for three members of Congress to travel to Iraq in October 2002 at the behest of Saddam's regime. Prosecutors say Iraqi intelligence officials paid for the trip through an intermediary. At the time, the Bush administration was trying to persuade Congress to authorize military action against Iraq. The lawmakers are not named in the indictment but the dates correspond to a trip by Democratic Reps. Jim McDermott of Washington, David Bonior of Michigan and Mike Thompson of California.
Al-Hanooti was arrested Tuesday night while returning to the U.S. from the Middle East, where he was looking for a job, his attorney, James Thomas, said. Al-Hanooti pleaded not guilty Wednesday to charges of conspiracy to act as an unregistered agent of a foreign government, illegally purchasing Iraqi oil and lying to authorities. He was being held on $100,000 bail. Thomas said Al-Hanooti would "vigorously defend" himself against the charges but he could not discuss the specifics of the case since he had seen none of the evidence.
Prosecutors said Al-Hanooti was responsible for monitoring Congress for the Iraqi Intelligence Service. From 1999 to 2002, he allegedly provided Saddam's government with a list of U.S. lawmakers he believed favored lifting economic sanctions against Iraq. In exchange for coordinating the congressional trip, Al-Hanooti allegedly received 2 million barrels of Iraqi oil, prosecutors said. DeCesare said McDermott was invited to go to Iraq by a Seattle church group and was unaware of any other funding for the trip.
| |||||||
| Link |
| Home Front: Politix |
| Edwards Attacks Clinton on Questionable Contributions |
| 2007-10-21 |
 ABC News' Raelyn Johnson Reports: After an article in Friday's "Los Angeles Times" revealed that Clinton received large donations from poor residents living in New York City's Chinatown, the Edwards campaign pounced on the opportunity to bring more attention to the questionable contributions.  "This morning we all read in L.A. Times that many Clinton campaign contributions are raising eyebrows again. Many of their donors are not even registered to vote, and at least one denied even making any contribution at all," Edwards Campaign Manager David Bonior said in a statement on Friday. "Senator Clinton has said public financing is the answer. Senator Edwards has opted to take public financing, but Senator Clinton has not. Senator Clinton should explain why she doesn't mean what she says...The bottom line is we need a nominee who can do two things: campaign in all 50 states and challenge our broken system in Washington. With every day the growing question has to be can Hillary Clinton do either?" Last Sunday while campaigning in New Hampshire, Edwards sought to bring Clinton down a notch by pointing to a story "The New York Times" that explained the New York Senator's vote to declare the Iranian Revolutionary Guard a terrorist organization. "There was a story in today's New York Times about this issue and about her vote on this issue. And some of her advisers said that she voted yes because she was moving from primary mode to general election mode. I may be wrong, and you'll have to tell me, have we already decided who's going to win the New Hampshire primary," said Edwards during a town hall meeting in Dover last week. Seeking further distinction he added, "instead of primary mode versus general election mode, instead of saying one thing in the primary and something different for the general election, how about if we do tell the truth mode all the time. How about if we say exactly what we believe and stand by that position." |
| Link |
| Iraq |
| Democrats Refocus Message on Iraq After Military Gains |
| 2007-08-22 |
 Democratic leaders in Congress had planned to use August recess to raise the heat on Republicans to break with President Bush on the Iraq war. Instead, Democrats have been forced to recalibrate their own message in the face of recent positive signs on the security front, increasingly focusing their criticisms on what those military gains have not achieved: reconciliation among Iraq's diverse political factions.And now the Democrats, along with wavering Republicans, will face an advertising blitz from Bush supporters determined to remain on offense. A new pressure group, Freedom's Watch, will unveil a month-long, $15 million television, radio and grass-roots campaign today designed to shore up support for Bush's policies before the commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, lays out a White House assessment of the war's progress. The first installment of Petraeus's testimony is scheduled to be delivered before the House Armed Services and Foreign Affairs committees on the sixth anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, a fact both the administration and congressional Democrats say is simply a scheduling coincidence. The leading Democratic candidates for the White House have fallen into line with the campaign to praise military progress while excoriating Iraqi leaders for their unwillingness to reach political accommodations that could end the sectarian warfare. "We've begun to change tactics in Iraq, and in some areas, particularly in Anbar province, it's working," Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) said in a speech to the Veterans of Foreign Wars on Monday. "My assessment is that if we put an additional 30,000 of our troops into Baghdad, that's going to quell some of the violence in the short term," Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) echoed in a conference call with reporters Tuesday. "I don't think there's any doubt that as long as U.S. troops are present that they are going to be doing outstanding work." Advisers to both said theirs were political as well as substantive statements, part of a broader Democratic effort to frame Petraeus's report before it is released next month by preemptively acknowledging some military success in the region. Aides to several Senate Democrats said they expect that to be a recurring theme in the coming weeks, as lawmakers return to hear Petraeus's testimony and to possibly take up a defense authorization bill and related amendments on the war. For Democratic congressional leaders, the dog days of August are looking anything but quiet. Having failed twice to crack GOP opposition and force a major change in war policy, Democrats risk further alienating their restive supporters if the September showdown again ends in stalemate. House Democratic leaders held an early morning conference call yesterday with House Armed Services Committee Chairman Ike Skelton (D-Mo.), honing a new message: Of course an influx of U.S. troops has improved security in Iraq, but without any progress on political reconciliation, the sweat and blood of American forces has been for naught. House Democratic Caucus Chairman Rahm Emanuel (D-Ill.) made a round of calls yesterday to freshman Democrats, some of whom recently returned from trips to Iraq and made news with their positive comments on military progress. "I'm not finding any wobbliness on the war -- at all," Emanuel said. The burst of effort has been striking, if only because Democrats left for their August recess confident that Republicans would be on the defensive by now. Instead, the GOP has gone on the attack. The new privately funded ad campaign, to run in 20 states, features a gut-level appeal from Iraq war veterans and the families of fallen soldiers, pleading: "It's no time to quit. It's no time for politics." "For people who believe in peace through strength, the cavalry is coming," said Ari Fleischer, a former Bush White House press secretary who is helping to head Freedom's Watch.  GOP leaders have latched on to positive comments from Democrats -- often out of context -- to portray the congressional majority as splintering. Rep. Ellen O. Tauscher (D-Calif.), an Armed Services Committee member who is close to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), said many of her colleagues learned a hard lesson from the Republican campaign."I don't know of anybody who isn't desperately supportive of the military," she said. "People want to say positive things. But it's difficult to say positive things in this environment and not have some snarky apologist for the White House turn it into some clipped phraseology that looks like support for the president's policies." Rep. Jerry McNerney (D-Calif.), who made waves when he returned from Iraq by saying he was willing to be more flexible on troop withdrawal timelines, issued a statement to constituents "setting the record straight." "I am firmly in favor of withdrawing troops on a timeline that includes both a definite start date and a definite end date," he wrote on his Web site. But in an interview yesterday, McNerney made clear his views have shifted since returning from Iraq. He said Democrats should be willing to negotiate with the generals in Iraq over just how much more time they might need. And, he said, Democrats should move beyond their confrontational approach, away from tough-minded, partisan withdrawal resolutions, to be more conciliatory with Republicans who might also be looking for a way out of the war. "We should sit down with Republicans, see what would be acceptable to them to end the war and present it to the president, start negotiating from the beginning," he said, adding, "I don't know what the [Democratic] leadership is thinking. Sometimes they've done things that are beyond me." In the fight for the Democratic presidential nomination, former senator John Edwards issued a scathing attack on Clinton's remark. But he said there has been "progress in Al-Anbar province." "Senator Clinton's view that the President's Iraq policy is 'working' is another instance of a Washington politician trying to have it both ways," Edwards campaign manager David Bonior said in a statement. "You cannot be for the President's strategy in Iraq but against the war. The American people deserve straight talk and real answers on Iraq, not double-speak, triangulation, or political positioning." |
| Link |
| Home Front: WoT |
| More on Iraqi-American Samir Vincent's guilty plea |
| 2005-01-24 |
| From the Wall Street Journal. Behind the subscription wall, so given here uncut. The United Nations Oil for Food scandal continues to effloresce, moving last week into the criminal realm. Iraqi-American Samir Vincent's guilty plea shows that Saddam Hussein was indeed exploiting the program to buy influence around the world--including in the U.S.--and suggests there is far more to be uncovered. Mr. Vincent pleaded guilty Tuesday in Federal District Court in New York to acting as an unregistered foreign agent for Saddam's Iraq and to related conspiracy and tax-evasion charges. According to the charge sheet prepared by U.S. Attorney David Kelley, he "consulted with and repeatedly received direction from the Government of Iraq in the course of lobbying officials of the United States Government and the United Nations." For his efforts, Mr. Vincent confesses, he was personally awarded five separate oil allocations worth millions of dollars under Oil for Food. He faces potential penalties of up to 28 years in prison. So, precisely what services did Saddam Hussein deem that valuable? A full answer likely will have to wait for what U.S. Attorney Kelley tells us is an "ongoing investigation"--in which Mr. Vincent has agreed to cooperate--to further its course. But the charge sheet refers tantalizingly to efforts by Mr. Vincent and unnamed others "including United Nations officials . . . to secure terms favorable to Iraq in connection with the adoption and implementation of [Security Council] Resolution 986," which created the Oil for Food program. That suggests Saddam understood from the start that Oil for Food was a chance to evade U.N. sanctions and prop up his regime. The charge sheet also describes what appear to be extensive lobbying efforts over many years involving "former officials of the United States Government who maintained close contacts to high-ranking members of both the Clinton and Bush Administrations" in an effort to fully repeal sanctions. "Vincent reported the results of those consultations to the Iraqi Intelligence Service," the charges state. Like any good prosecutor, U.S. Attorney Kelley refuses to speculate on the next steps in his investigation. But another American whose name has surfaced in connection with Oil for Food is Detroit-area businessman Shakir al-Khafaji. Like Mr. Vincent, Mr. Khafaji appeared on lists of individuals alleged to have received oil allocations from Saddam. As our Robert Pollock reported last March based on information from an Iraqi intelligence source, those oil vouchers may have been similarly intended as part of an influence-buying campaign here in the U.S. Mr. Khafaji financed an anti-sanctions documentary by former U.N. weapons inspector Scott Ritter, and he brought a Congressional delegation headed by former House Minority Whip David Bonior to Iraq, among other activities. A third American alleged to have received oil vouchers is Texas tycoon Oscar Wyatt, a longtime acquaintance of Saddam who opposed the first Gulf War. Saddam's influence-buying was ineffective when it came to the U.S. But remember that prior to 9/11 and President Bush's decision to promote democracy in the Middle East, there was a growing consensus in the U.S. foreign policy establishment in favor of "smart" (i.e., relaxed) sanctions on Iraq. We'd be curious to know if the smart sanctions proponents were among Mr. Vincent's associates. And of course Saddam's buy-them-off strategy was far more extensive--and arguably successful--as regards the rest of the world. Why did France, Russia and the U.N. Security Council refuse to approve force despite Saddam's flagrant violation of 17 different resolutions? Last week's news makes it still harder to claim with a straight face that this type of corruption, or at least fear of its exposure, had nothing to do with the refusal to oust Saddam. The Oil for Food scandal is at its roots about whether the current U.N.-centric global security architecture is hopelessly vulnerable to corruption or can be trusted to perform. That's why every serious internationalist should be paying close attention to investigations like Mr. Kelley's and that of the U.N. panel led by Paul Volcker. |
| Link |
| Home Front: WoT |
| Gore Commission watered down CAPPS I after lobbying by CAIR |
| 2004-04-13 |
| EFL - kind of dated but relevant due to ongoing 9-11 Commission. The Computer-Assisted Passenger Profiling System, or CAPPS, selected six hijackers for additional security screening on Sept. 11, because they bought one-way tickets using cash, things that show up as red flags in the system. But only their checked luggage was searched, authorities say. The selected passengers themselves werenât searched or even questioned by airport security personnel. Thatâs because the so-called "Gore Commission" on aviation security last decade ruled out such profiling as discriminatory. Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations lobbied hard against Arab-profiling at airports, enlisting lawmakers like Rep. David Bonior, a Democrat from a heavily Arab district in Michigan. He, in turn, lobbied FAA Administrator Jane Garvey. The airlines, which handled security at airport terminals, were also reluctant to profile Arabs. "CAPPS was developed because the airline industry didnât want to do human-profiling," said the FAA official, who wished to remain anonymous. "Yet human-profiling is the single-biggest deterrent against terrorism in the aviation industry." CAPPS ignores key terror predictors, he says, such as the nationality, ethnicity, religion, language and even the sex of passengers. Young men of Middle Eastern origin tend to fit the anti-American or anti-Israeli terrorist profile, authorities say. The computerized system instead flags passengers based on relatively sterile criteria involving the purchase of their tickets. Did they pay cash or credit? How many days in advance of the flight? One-way or round-trip? Are they irregular or frequent fliers? Of course, such behavior can easily be changed by would-be hijackers to fool the system. "CAPPS literally makes you a selectee based on how you purchase your ticket," the FAA official said. "It has nothing to do with fighting terrorism, in spite of what the FAA says." The computer also selects a certain number of passengers by random. For example, United Airlines Flight 93 passenger Nicole Miller was selected on Sept. 11 to have her checked bags secretly swept. The 21-year-old was heading back home to San Jose, Calif., where she went to college and worked as a waitress at Chiliâs. Her hijacked plane crashed in Pennsylvania shortly after take-off from Newark, N.J. It would be interesting to see Gore, Bonoir and the FAA publically testify. |
| Link |
| Home Front |
| Howard Dean Endorsed by Key Quislingcrat |
| 2003-10-11 |
| A After Seattle Visit, Howard Dean Snags "Baghdad" Jim McDermottâs Endorsement Edited for length In the wake of Howard Deanâs return appearance in This just might be an early Christmas present for Karl Rove - if he plays it right... ...McDermott was excoriated for claiming, during a I canât really call it a "goal", just a fantasy...Jim McDermott, David Bonior and...what was the name of that 3rd Quislingcrat who went over there?...being tied to stakes in a Leavenworth courtyard, as a JAG Captain reads the sentence handed down by the treason trial, and the armorer checks the sights on the M-14âs... |
| Link |
| Home Front |
| McDermott and Bonior try to defend the indefensible... |
| 2002-10-02 |
| Two Democratic congressmen, brushing off criticisms they were aiding the enemy, said Wednesday their mission to Iraq succeeded in impressing on Iraqis that war was likely if they did not agree to unfettered inspections of weapons stockpiles. Reps. Jim McDermott of Washington and David Bonior of Michigan, both Vietnam War-era veterans, also said at a news conference that they felt obligated to inform Americans of the risks they faced by going to war with Iraq. I'm a Vietnam-era veteran, too. Even got my little yellow-green-red ribbon. I say they're jerks... McDermott said he was stunned by "the extent to which the Iraqi people are ready to fight house-to-house." He asked whether the United States should "be taking on this country all by itself when the Arab world is now seething with recruits for Osama bin Laden." Sure. They'll be seething with recruits for Osama bin Laden regardless of what we do, so why not? The two lawmakers, and Rep. Mike Thompson, D-Calif., returned Tuesday night from their visit to Baghdad and other Iraqi cities. In news conferences while in Iraq they urged the Iraqis not to interfere with the inspection process and the Bush administration to give those inspections a chance to work before taking military action. How about the part where they called Bush a liar? Republican leaders strongly criticized the visit, with Sen. Don Nickles of Oklahoma, the Senate's No. 2 Republican, saying they "both sound somewhat like spokespersons for the Iraqi government." The word "somewhat" turns that into an understatement, doesn't it? House Majority Leader Dick Armey, R-Texas, said McDermott was "totally out of touch with the most fundamental tenet of congressional responsibilities" and that he and other liberals had "just basically regressed to their childhood days of Vietnam War protests." McDermott said he was not a pacifist but had "a responsibility as a patriot, as someone who loves his country, to speak up for what I believe." War, added Bonior, "destroys lives in such a profound way." Yes, it's bad for Children™ and other living things. So're bloody-handed dictators. Y'know what else destroys lives in a really profound way? Mealy-mouthed congressmen who go tromping off to enemy nations to have their pictures taken and badmouth their country... McDermott stressed that "I don't trust Saddam Hussein under any circumstances And war would require a congressional authorization, and that would require a vote, and a vote would be recorded as part of the public record. And if a congressman represents a district that doesn't believe in war an' stuff, and has a deep and abiding admiration for dictators, we couldn't possibly have that. Best to avoid the whole thing... |
| Link |
| Fifth Column |
| U.S. Congressmen Slam Barbaric Sanctions Against Iraq |
| 2002-09-29 |
| Three anti-war U.S. congressmen on a rare visit to Iraq on Sunday, September 29, criticized the 12-year U.N. sanctions regime as âbarbaricâ, saying that open weapons inspections must resume to ensure it is lifted. They weren't lifted when weapons inspections were in force because the inspectors were hindered at every turn... Democrat representative David Bonior of Michigan spoke of âthe horrific and barbaric suffering ... particularly children are undergoing,â after visiting a hospital, a pediatric clinic and two desalination plants in this southern Iraqi port city. He stressed along with colleagues Jim McDermott of Washington state and Mike Thompson of California âthe absolute necessity to end the sanctionsâ through âfair, open, unrestricted [weapons] inspectionsâ by the United Nations. Yep. Any time now. âIf we go to war again we will simply double or triple the problems we have created in 1991,â from the Gulf War, said McDermott.âThe theory was that if we put pressure on the Iraqi people somehow they would throw out [President] Saddam Hussein, all that has done is punish the Iraqi people. It did not work and I think that it is not right what we are doing and that it must stop.â Well, okay then. And pray tell just what should we do? If we can't attack him and throw him out, and we can't use sanctions because of The Children™, what other options are open, other than "pretty please with honey on top"? Representative Bonior is a long-time opponent of the sanctions devastating the Iraqi people. He has during his tenure held numerous press conferences criticizing the brutality aimed against Iraqi civilians. He also co-sponsored a letter to former president Bill Clinton asking that the sanctions be lifted. He also lost his bid for governor — heh heh! — and he ran for governor because it looked like he was gonna lose his House seat. Seems he has a lot of support. McDermott also noted claims that the use of depleted uranium weapons during the Gulf War had increased âmalformations and leukemia in children, and we wanted to see for ourselves what that was about.â How many malformed and leukaemic children did they visit? They had heard in Baghdad from Health Minister Omid Medhat Mubarak that the embargo had caused the deaths of more than 1.7 million Iraqis since it was imposed in 1990. |
| Link |
| Axis of Evil |
| Congressmen fly to Baghdad to have their pictures taken... |
| 2002-09-28 |
| Three U.S. Congressmen arrived in Baghdad Friday, September 27, 2002, to examine the humanitarian situation in the sanctions-hit country amid repeated war threats by U.S. President George W. Bushâs administration. "We want every diplomatic effort made to resolve this [crisis] without war," said Democrat Jim McDermott (WA). "We're sure we did something to bring on this crisis, and I just want to say that I'm sorry we did it, whatever it was..." "We have no interest in having war and we want our administration to pursue every avenue before war. It has to be the last option. And our opinion is that we do not think the United States should ever make a first strike." "We'd rather see several major American cities in rubble before that would happen, and we'd hesitate then..." "The result we want, we will not have it. The result people talk about is having democracy in the Middle East, but I don't think a war against Iraq is the way to start," McDermott said. "The way to start is, ummm... something else." McDermott acknowledged that he and his fellow traveling Democrats, David Bonior of Michigan - a strong supporter of Muslim causes - and Michael Thompson of California, represented a minority view in the United States. But "I have a very strong feeling about putting people into a war, especially a war where it is not clear what it is about, or why we are doing it. From my point of view, we should do everything we can to prevent war," he said. "Cuz we're, like, against war and stuff, and we think everybody should just be nice, and ain't Bush stoopid?" The trio's visit was the second to Iraq by anti-war U.S. lawmakers, West Virginia Democrat Nick Rahall having visited earlier this month. I remember reading about that. Wonder why he didn't put a press release on his website? The three Democrats flew into Baghdad from Amman on a Jordanian plane. "We talked to the [U.S.] State Department before we came and we have the necessary documents from them so we are perfectly within our rights," McDermott said. "I mean, it ain't like we're aiding and abetting anybody..." He said two non-profit groups, the Seattle-based Church Council and the Life Foundation of Detroit, "wanted us to come here and look at the humanitarian situation here in Iraq". |
| Link |