Marching on the Plaza, Kansas City, March 20, 2003.

March 20, 2003

[We] left Warrensburg at 4:30 p.m. and made it to the J.C. Nichols fountain at 47th and Main in Kansas City by 5:30 p.m. The organizers had planned for some time to have a 6:00 p.m. protest on the Plaza if hostilities broke out. I had been ambivalent about attending given the ugly rhetoric which is now being directed at those who dissent by the purveyors of right wing talk radio, cable television, and “yellow journalism”.  We had to do something positive and affirming rather than sit at home watching the crap on television which passes for real journalism these days, so we were finally resolved to attend.  As we drove up to the fountain we saw that people were already on the picket line and the TV trucks and cameras were in abundance.  At its peak we had 400 to 500 people.

It was overcast, cold and windy – temperature in the 40s.  We took our place on the line. We had decided earlier to only bring our pacifist signs. “Peace on Earth”, “In the Name of God, Stop Killing, In the Name of God”, and my graphic peace sign – it’s getting tattered from so much use…

Somewhat subdued, we quietly spoke on the line.  My favorite new sign: “War is so 20th century”. The response from passing traffic was overwhelmingly positive – a lot of honking and peace signs.  One well pickled Republican matron rolled down her car window and asked, “Don’t you people know the war has already started?”  This kind of cluelessness shouldn’t surprise me anymore.  There were occasional pro-war shouts and one “bird”, though I was surprised that they were not as ugly and aggressive as they were last Sunday – I suppose they’re sated because they are getting their crappy little war.

We stood next to a veteran (there were many there tonight).  We were joined by an old friend and several colleagues.  After a while the organizers called us to the fountain.  Some folk singers sang a witty and satirical “12 days of war” song.  We had brought candles (and plastic cups as wind shields), so we lit them and stood listening to the music.  The singers had us all join in singing “Peace, Shalom, Salaam”.  There were several speakers.  In the most peaceful moment of the day for me, as we stood there with our candles, we were barely aware that a photographer from the Kansas City Star took our pictures (when he finished he asked for our names and where we were from, writing the information down).  After the announcements were finished, the host marched through the Plaza shopping district.

The marchers stayed on the sidewalk, chanting in a call and response “Tell me what democracy looks like. This is what democracy looks like” and “What do we want? Peace! When do we want it? Now!”  As we marched into the Plaza we passed the glassed in front of one of those upscale dining establishments.  Lo and behold, two older women were standing watching us and flashed us peace signs!  We looped back around and passed several clothing establishments.  Some people shopping in the stores or watching us from the doorways flashed peace signs.

After we made it back to the fountain we walked to our car for the hour long drive home.

Has anything changed?

Seven years ago today:

Presenter: Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz   May 31, 2003

Deputy Secretary of Defense Wolfowitz Interview with Michael Dwyer, Australian Broadcasting

….Q:  Just a couple of questions on Iraq.  I was just wondering as of today, where you consider the weapons of mass destruction to be and why the United Nations and weapons inspectors are still not being invited back into Iraq.

Wolfowitz:  Well on the second point, they’re certainly welcome to come back and in fact I believe we’ve made some arrangements already for the IAEA to come back to do some checking on sites that are known.  But bear in mind this regime had 12 years to develop very sophisticated methods of hiding things.  We have found those biological vans that the defector in Germany told us about.  They seem to be exactly what he said they would be.  And I would think that would pretty well corroborate the rest of his story which is they were for the production of biological weapons.

We said all along that we will never get to the bottom of the Iraqi WMD program simply by going and searching specific sites, that you’d have to be able to get people who know about the programs to talk to you.  And that’s why we gave the UN inspectors authorities they never had before to interview people.

It’s quite significant I think that Saddam never allowed any of his people to be interviewed without tape recorders present or monitors present, and we now have our hands on some small number of those people, and I think eventually with information that we get from people who know about the programs, we’ll get to the bottom of what was there and what happened to it….

Over five years later:

Bush: My biggest regret is false intelligence on Iraq WMDs

“…The biggest regret of all the presidency has to have been the intelligence failure in Iraq,” Bush said. “A lot of people put their reputations on the line and said the weapons of mass destruction is a reason to remove Saddam Hussein.”

But he declined to speculate on whether he would have gone to war if the intelligence had said Iraq did not possess weapons of mass destruction….

My biggest regret is that at the end of 2000 I had to ask myself the question, “Did I do enough?” And almost ten years later I continue to be painfully reminded of the answer.

State Representative Stephen Webber (D-23), a Missouri Boys State alumni and staffer spoke to Boys State participants Tuesday night in Hendricks Hall on the campus of the University of Central Missouri.

Missouri State Representative Stephen Webber (D-23)

Representative Stephen Webber: …Boys State has been a part of my life the last nine years, not just in the weeks I’ve spent here on this campus, but really in the lessons that I’ve learned here. And I apply them each and every day.

I’m very, very honored and grateful to have an opportunity to address you today. It’s meaningful to me and I appreciate all that you, and all the members of the Boys State staff, and the Legionnaires, my fellow Legionnaires have done. I appreciate it. I’m grateful.

You all have an opportunity to hear from a tremendous variety of speakers. You just heard the Governor of the State of Missouri. You’re hearing other speakers this week who are of state and national prominence. And it can be difficult to try to figure out in this short period of time what I can say that would maybe leave some sort of mark. Or sort of inspire somebody in this room to something. So what I decided to do tonight is to tell you a story. It’s one story, it’s a hard story, but I think by the end of it you’ll understand why the principles that Boys State stands for means so much to me and why I’m committed to public service…

…The story takes place in two thousand four. I’m twenty years old, a few years older than any of you. I’m a United States Marine. I’ve been called in my junior year of college to go to Iraq for the first time. I’m an infantryman in the middle of the Sunni triangle, one of the most violent regions of, of Iraq. That, that summer, one thing you have to do if you’re in a hostile area is you have to constantly be watching, your back, watching your base. And so, one of the, one of the duties that, that fell to me as an Infantryman was to pull guard duty. To stand on the, on the north wall of our forward operating base just to observe, and make sure that nobody could attack us or, or make sure that my buddies that are inside could have a few minutes of peace and quiet.

When you stand guard duty every day you start to notice the patterns and, and things, there’s repetition, and sort of the flow of the city that you’re in. One of these patterns was that every day large numbers of Iraqi children would come to us begging for food, asking for candy, asking for money, which was a very normal thing. But one of these children came more often than the others. And he stayed longer than the others. The others would leave and he would stay. And slowly through my little Arabic and his bigger command of English we began talking. I found out that his name was Malik. That his, his father worked at a roadside stand selling trinkets – he had lost both of his legs in a war several years ago, one of Sadam’s wars.

Every time Malik came by he had sandals, but he’d bring his sister, his younger sister would always be barefoot. He didn’t go to school, he foraged for scraps of metal that he and his family could sell for food. He lived in pretty dire poverty. But he and I formed a friendship and we’d talk about hopes and dreams. He told me what he wanted to be when he grew up. He wanted to be a police officer. I’d tell him about my home back in Missouri, and missing my friends. If there was a big firefight or attack that day or that night, the next day he and I would talk about it. He’d laugh. He’d talk about how he ran to the basement and hid. And I’d talk about how we hid in the bunker or shooting at somebody and we could share and bond over our common experience of living in a world torn with war.

When I found out that that he, like most Iraqi children he loved soccer, but he didn’t have a soccer ball. So I wrote home to my mother and asked her to send me one and I gave him his first soccer ball to play with in his village.

But this is Iraq and it’s a war zone. And there are really no happy stories that come out of war zones. And so one day the children didn’t come by my post. About, late in the afternoon a car came up and out came a bag, a burlap sack. And the car drove away. And I looked through my rifle scope to try and figure out what was in the sack. And I saw the sack was moving. And then out of the sack crawled Malik.

He hadn’t been the only one watching my post. There were other people in the village, the town who saw a friendship between a young American Marine and a young Iraqi boy and they were threatened by it. They were scared because they thought that if maybe we got along through cross cultural dialogue and we became friends, maybe somehow that would change their world. And they refused to let that happen.

Malik stumbled away from the highway up to my post. He was bloody.  While my buddy watched I ran down to, to grab him, to see him, to see what had happened. His face was already bruised and swelling. He had been beaten. They had taken a knife and they had cut this nine year old boy’s hands through his fingers, through his toes, and scarred his face. And I tried to bandage him up through the fence using my own first aid kit that was supposed to be meant for me. He didn’t cry, he just stared quietly at me while I worked and tried to tell him in English I’m sure he didn’t understand that everything would be okay.

Once I got him bandaged up my buddy and I covered him with our rifles as he ran back across the street, back into the village, and hopefully the safety of his home. And I assumed that would be the last time I would ever see Malik. I was wrong though. The next day, still bandaged up, Malik came back. And I ran down the steps of my post and to the fence to talk to him. And I tried to ask…why? Why did he come back? He’d just been tortured. He could be killed. Why was he talking to me? And he didn’t understand what I was saying. And I kept trying to find the words to ask what, what made him come back to me.

And finally, this look of understanding came across his face.  And he looked at me and he said one thing. He looked at me dead in the eye. And he said, “I love you.” And I didn’t know what to take that. I couldn’t protect this Iraqi child. In a way I felt like I was his older brother, I loved him, too. But I knew when nightfall came I couldn’t, I couldn’t watch out for him. I knew that there was people in the village that were gonna hurt him and I knew that in a month I was going home to my life in America, I was going back to college. And I felt sort of a sense of betrayal that I was leaving him behind. That he would come and have such faith in me and I couldn’t deliver. And I struggled with that for a while.

But then I’ve come, I finally came to understand something. What I understand now that I didn’t understand then. Is that when Malik talked to me he wasn’t just speaking for himself. He wasn’t just speaking for the children of Iraq or the children of the world. Malik was speaking for everyone that struggled. Everyone that suffers from poverty, that is a victim of crime. His life was wracked by violence, he doesn’t have an education, he doesn’t always feel like they have a chance in this world. And when he told me that he loved me he wasn’t necessarily talking just about me. He was talking about anyone who does have an education, anyone who’s fortunate enough to be in a position to make a difference. And what he was saying was even as bad things happen to me, even though I know he knew that I was leaving, that I couldn’t stay with him, he still had faith in humanity. He still had faith in the goodness of people. He still had faith that I would find a way, maybe not now, but in some way, s
ome capacity, to help him or help others like him.

Now look across this room tonight. Everyone here is incredibly blessed. When you were born you became a citizen of the United States of America, one of the great countries on Earth. Not because our military might or financial power, but because the reputation we have for being a nation of rights and laws and the opportunity for social mobility. To, to make a change in your life.

Every single one of you is going into your senior year of high school. You’ve already been given an opportunity in education that many in this world only dream of having. And you’ve been tapped for Boys State. You’ve been brought here because folks in your community see something in you. And they believe that you can come back home to, to your community, where you’re from, and you can make a difference. They believe there’s something about you that makes you a difference maker.

And so what I’m asking you tonight is to use that, use that power for good. Now I have no doubt that every single person here if they choose to can go back and be wildly successful when they grow up, through college, getting a good job, making money. But what I’m asking you is to take a piece of that and just use that to help your fellow man. You don’t have to be a monk. You can have fun, life’s, life’s to be enjoyed. You go to college, enjoy it. When you get your first job have fun with your friends. But make sure you leave a piece of yourself that can be devoted and dedicated to helping others.

Find something here this week. Look around you, you see staff members, some of my greatest friends, who give up a week of their life, away from their families, they use vacation time, and they do it because they fundamentally believe in the power of giving back. And they fundamentally believe in the power you have to shape this world.

If there’s one thing I’ve seen, walking around either Jefferson City, or my home district in Columbia, or patrolling the streets of Fallujah is that this world needs leaders. You have the capacity to be those leaders. And I’m asking you to step up to the challenge and do that. Your community needs you, your state needs you, your country needs you, and this entire world needs you…

…Thank you very much [applause]

God does have a sense of humor, but she’s still pissed.

Of course it’s all over the news and blogs. I’m not sure most people realize the scope and breadth of the insult.

My mother and aunts were raised in a French colony in North Africa. As a result, as children, we – my sibling, my cousins and I – were exposed to the variety of cultural mores in our parents’ lives in a number of practical ways. When we got into some mischief which upset them the adults would reach for and remove a shoe from their foot.

When that happened we knew we were in serious trouble.

On Monday, I asked members of Congress in Missouri and those running for the position if they would comment on the recent dustup between Barack Obama and John McCain over Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s support for Obama’s withdrawal plan.

The first two responses are in. Byron DeLear was not surprisingly first to comment, doing so (bonus points!) in a long comment here on the blog. Money quote:

We must reverse Bush and Akin’s policy in Iraq, send a message to the Iraqi government that we don’t intend on occupying their country permanently, and begin an immediate and responsible “phased withdrawal” of our troops.

This means systematically redeploying those troops, bringing our national guard troops home, and reengaging the international community, including the UN into a peace-keeping role.

Most candidates like to discuss these issues as if they were running for Commander-in-Chief, that is, ‘here is my plan for Iraq’ — or — ‘this is my 10 year road map for the Iraq War’, etc.

And although there may be value in unpacking the ‘big picture’ here from an academic perspective, or just from a conversational one, as a Federal legislator for MO-2, I will be just one of 435 votes in the US House.

A progressive vote.

And Lyndon Bode, a relatively conservative Democratic candidate for the 9th Congressional District, chimes in via e-mail:

Yes – I would support the withdrawal of troops with the request of Iraq government officials saying they are ready to take charge. Therefore if they support Obama’s plan then I support the plan. I believe this has been the goal from the start. A free Iraq country and government.

We’ll keep posting responses as we get them.

Earlier this week, Iraq’s prime minister announced that he agreed in principle with Barack Obama’s plan to withdraw all US combat troops from Iraq in 16 months. McCain thinks US troops should remain for a hundred years or more.

Now that we know where the two prospective leaders of our country stand, and where the leader of the country we currently occupy stands, I’m curious about you stand on one of the top issues facing America. And by you, I mean you, the commenters on this blog, and you, Claire McCaskill, and you, Kit Bond, and you, Sam Graves, and you, Russ Carnahan, and so on, right through everyone in Missouri either serving in Congress or running a campaign to do so next year.

Do you agree in general with Obama and the prime minister of Iraq, or with John McCain? Where do you stand?

I’ll post the answers from electeds and candidates as I receive them through e-mail or in comments.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki agrees with Barack Obama’s plan for a US withdrawal from Iraq.

SPIEGEL: Would you hazard a prediction as to when most of the US troops will finally leave Iraq?

Maliki: As soon as possible, as far as we’re concerned. U.S. presidential candidate Barack Obama talks about 16 months. That, we think, would be the right timeframe for a withdrawal, with the possibility of slight changes.

The citizens of the US don’t want us in Iraq. The citizens of Iraq don’t want us in Iraq. Now the leader of Iraq publicly says he doesn’t want us in Iraq. So what are we still doing there?

It’ll be nice when we complete the loop and have a leader with a clue.

Here’s a jiffy update on the DNC ad that shows McSame saying he’d be fine with staying in Iraq for 100 years: He’s livid. He’s screaming foul. As well he might. Huffington Post reports that:

Results from a new national study among 629 self-reported Democrats, Republicans and independent voters showed that after viewing a new DNC ad attacking Senator McCain, independent voters’ favorability ratings of the senator decreased by 10% points.

Grin.

(hat tip to Jesse Lee for this one.) I don’t know if it was the pope’s visit or what, but the New York Times story about the Pentagon’s use of retired generals as propaganda puppets seemed to get lost in the shuffle this week. If you haven’t heard, these high-level retired military officers relied on access to the Pentagon to work in a second career as consultants to defense contractors. The Pentagon used that fact to pressure them to stay on message to support the war in Iraq, as many of them also found themselves in high demand as defense experts for network and cable news. Well, Ike Skelton was appropriately outraged.

Full remarks below the fold.

Chairman Skelton: “Mr. Speaker, last Sunday, the front page of the New York Times included a story about the efforts of the Pentagon’s public affairs operation to influence retired military officers now working as military analysts for some of our nation’s largest media organizations.

“I am very angry about the issues raised by the New York Times’ story, as are many of my colleagues who have called me aside to discuss it. The story does not reflect well on the Pentagon, on the military analysts in question, or on the media organizations that employ them.

“Mr. Speaker, maybe I am too idealistic, but this story is appalling to me on a number of levels. For me, it all comes down to trust and credibility. And it would be a dangerous thing for the American people to lose trust in the Pentagon, in our retired officer corps, and in the press, each of which has a critical role to play in preserving our nation’s freedoms.

“Through the years, I have frequently urged our military services to improve their efforts to tell America about the good work that is being done by our country’s sons and daughters in uniform. Our military services have an important story to tell, and public affairs offices are critical to that task. But credibility is paramount. Once lost, it is difficult or impossible to regain.

“There is nothing inherently wrong with providing information to the public and the press. But there is a problem if the Pentagon is providing special access to retired officers and then basically using them as pawns to spout the Administration’s talking points of the day. There are allegations that analysts who failed to deliver the message required by the Administration mysteriously lost access to future briefings and information. I find this deeply troubling. We deserve to be able to trust the actions of the Pentagon.

“We also deserve a retired officer corps that is worthy of the respect it receives from the American people, who place great faith in their judgment and loyalty to our nation. Americans trust our active duty and retired military, and rightly so.

“I know a number of the retired officers employed by the media as military analysts to be honorable people. But the special access they are alleged to have received and the circumstances of their employment, without proper disclosure of their outside interests or biases, raise a number of uncomfortable questions that deserve serious answers.

“Which master do these analysts serve?

“The United States Government, which supplies their retirement pay?

“The Pentagon, which may reduce the amount of analysis they actually need to do by providing detailed talking points promoting the current administration’s message agenda?

“The defense contractors, who pay them for serving on boards or for their defense expertise, and perhaps more to the point, for their Pentagon connections?

“Will their analysis, either by design or just by lucky coincidence, result in contracts or other advantages for the companies from which they take home a paycheck?

“It hurts me to my core to think that there are those from the ranks of our retired officers who have decided to cash in and essentially prostitute themselves on the basis of their previous positions within the Department of Defense. I would hate to think that because a few people have blurred ethical boundaries and cashed in on their former positions that we might tarnish the military’s hard won reputation for professionalism and objectivity and love of country first and foremost.

“Finally, I think our media have a serious responsibility to disclose potential conflicts of interest when they do their reporting. This applies to all of their stories, of course, and not just those that include retired officer military analysts. I understand that different organizations have different rules, but perhaps it would not be out of order for our journalism schools and professional journalism organizations to develop ethical guidelines for dealing with such issues.

“Mr. Speaker, our nation’s military exists to protect America’s freedoms for citizens today and for future generations. The First Amendment guarantees the right of all Americans, including retired service members and members of the press, to speak freely and without restraint. But with our rights come responsibilities to act honestly and ethically. I have no doubt we will continue to discuss these matters in the days ahead.

“Thank you, Mr. Speaker.”

Cross posted at OOIBC and at Edgeing

During an interview with Craig Unger about his new book “The Fall Of The House Of Bush”, Amy Goodman of Democracy Now (transcript here) refers to comments made by Dick Cheney in September 1992 after the first Gulf War, in a speech at the Economic Club of Detroit explaining why the George H. W. Bush administration did not go on to Baghdad after Saddam then.

Cheney’s comments in the speech show clearly that they knew irrefutably in 2003 before the invasion, not only that Saddam Hussein was no threat militarily to any country, much less to the United States, but that they also knew exactly what the conditions in Iraq likely to be produced by an invasion would be, and that they did it with eyes wide open, with conscious and full intention of producing the humanitarian crisis and chaos and death that has followed.

And knew that the responsibility for it would be theirs.

Cheney’s speech begins at about 3 min 50 sec into this Democracy Now Craig Unger interview video:

Parts two and three of the Democracy Now Craig Unger interview follow here: