Antiwar.com Blog

As Amy Goodman, of “Democracy Now,” pointed out on Chris Matthews’ Hardball tonight, at just about the time the 2000th American soldier falls in Iraq, Patrick J. Fitzgerald’s grand jury will — by all accounts — be indicting the War Party. This conjuncture of legality and tragedy needs to be observed with more than just appalled silence. United for Justice and Peace (UFJP), the biggest — and, in my view, the most effective — antiwar coalition, is calling for a national outpouring of protest on the day we reach the 2000 mark. From their website: Continue reading “2,000 Too Many”

Dear US State Department,

Here’s a suggestion for shutting Karen Hughes up:

Please bring her back to the US before she says any more offensive and stupid things.

U.S. envoy Karen Hughes on Friday defended Washington’s decision to go to war against Iraq in front of a skeptical audience, saying Saddam Hussein had gassed to death “hundreds of thousands” of his own people. A State Department official later said she misspoke about the number.

Hughes, undersecretary of state for public diplomacy, made the comment before a group of Indonesian students who repeatedly attacked her about Washington’s original rationale for the war, Iraq’s alleged weapons of mass destruction. No such arms were ever discovered.

“The consensus of the world intelligence community was that Saddam was a very dangerous threat,” Hughes said days after the ousted dictator went on trial in Baghdad on charges of murder and torture in a 1982 massacre of 148 Shiites in the town of Dujail.

“After all, he had used weapons of mass destruction against his own people,” she told a small auditorium with around 100 students. “He had murdered hundreds of thousands of his own people using poison gas.”

Although at least 300,000 Iraqis are said to have been killed during Saddam’s decades-long rule — only about 5,000 are believed to have been gassed to death in a 1988 attack in the Kurdish north.

Hughes twice repeated the statement after being challenged by journalists. Gordon Johndroe, a State Department official traveling with Hughes, later called The Associated Press to say she misspoke.

The title of this post has been blatantly ripped off from Princess Sparkle Pony. 

Saturday on the Weekend Interview Show, I’ll be talking with one Justin Raimondo, who knows a thing or two about Scooter-gate, and former CIA analyst and author Michael Scheuer about the future of the Global War on Terror.

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When I read ex-CIA officer Larry Johnson’s account of his luncheon with someone connected to the case, I thought it might not be substantive enough to pass along, but subsequent events have changed my mind, so here goes:

“Had lunch today with a person who has a direct tie to one of the folks facing indictment in the Plame affair. There are 22 files that Fitzgerald is looking at for potential indictment . These include Stephen Hadley, Karl Rove, Lewis Libby, Dick Cheney, and Mary Matalin (there are others of course). Hadley has told friends he expects to be indicted. No wonder folks are nervous at the White House.”

The subsequent event that changed my mind? Prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald has unveiled … his new website! Hardly the act of someone about to fold up his tent and steal away into the night …..

Scott Ritter and Seymour Hersh on “Democracy Now,” debunk what Hersh calls the “urban myth” that “everybody” believed Iraq had WMD. From G.H.W. Bush to Clinton to Bush II — as Ritter shows in his new book, Iraq Confidential, it was all about “regime change,” and never about disarmament.

The Clinton administration tried to intimidate Ritter into silence, he says. So much for the wishful thinking of antiwar Democrats that a change in administrations would have averted the invasion of Iraq.

And they’re getting ready to do the same thing to Iran ….

Ritter, a former UN arms inspector in Iraq, knew there weren’t any WMD in Iraq after the mid-1990s. He told the truth, and was relentlessly smeared for his efforts. His analysis is fascinating. Check it out.

Norman Ornstein in the HuffPuff:

“Americans all have to consider the implications now of a worst case scenario– the problems of scandal and polarization result in a meltdown of the W. Administration and a collapse of governance in Washington.”

Since Ornstein and his crowd are little orbs that move in relation to the glowing sun of Washington, the meltdown of Imperial authority would be — for them — the equivalent of the heat death of the universe. For the rest of us, of course, it would be a liberation — a fact that old Norm recognizes when he follows up his remarks with:

“No doubt some hard core partisans and ideologues would exult. But with the domestic and foreign policy challenges the country faces, it would be a disaster for all of us.”

It would be no such thing. Life would go on. People — real people, ordinary people, the farthest from “partisans” and “ideologues” as it is possible to get — would go about their lives, unencumbered, for once, by the knowledge that the warlords of Washington could start a new war (think Syria, think Iran), or come up with a fresh reason to restrict what is left of our traditional liberties. Naturally, such a state could not be allowed to persist for too long — after all, where there is a chance to seize power, can any politician resist? — but it would be good (good fun, that is) while it lasted.

That aside, however, take a look at Ornstein’s scenario of what happens next:

“1. Vice President Cheney resigns– and President Bush replaces him not with Condoleeza Rice, as the rumors in Washington speculate, but with his father, George H.W. Bush.

“2. President Bush resigns, allowing his father to move up to the presidency.

“3. Bush 41/44 chooses his best buddy and surrogate son Bill Clinton (42, that is) to be Vice President. Talk about a fusion White House. Talk about bringing us together. Talk about compassionate triangulation.

“Keep this roadmap in your back pocket for now. And remember, you heard it here first.”

Earth to Norm, re: 2 – 3: it ain’t gonna happen. Just remember, however, where you heard the “Cheney resigns” prediction first — on Antiwar.com, of course. Waaaay back in October 2003:

“”If Libby is implicated as having anything to do with Plame’s ‘outing,’ then that, in turn, implicates Cheney, who must take responsibility. The vice president’s resignation, under these circumstances, is a distinct possibility.””

UPDATE: Ornstein emailed me shortly after this post went up:

“Earth to Justin: it was a joke­, a parody. Like the last one. I guess I have to write PARODY around these posts.”

Who can tell, these days ….?