The New Forthcoming Downing Street Minutes

seemslikeadream

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Thu Feb-28-08 11:44 AM
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The New Forthcoming Downing Street Minutes

http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/?q=node/31395

The war's full story?
By Robert Fox, Guardian

The order to disclose cabinet documents from March 2003 on the legal argument for war in Iraq marks a milestone - but not a huge change. For that has already happened. Usually it would take up to 30 years, or more if they involved state security, for such papers to emerge and be placed in the National Archives.

Now two sets of papers are to be disclosed within 28 days concerning discussions about the case for war. We know that the Attorney General Lord Goldsmith had indicated early in March 2003 that the legal justification for Britain attacking Saddam Hussein was equivocal, and far from clear-cut. Then in or around March 16 2003 we know he changed his mind and he gave a short summary of the legal argument for joining the American offensive.

The new disclosures should explain why he changed his mind, and more to the point who persuaded him to. Since then he said his view was changed concerning two crucial UN security council resolutions, numbers 678 of the late autumn of 1990 and 687 of March 1991. This does not represent an open and shut foundation for a casus belli, as such eminent authorities as Professor Adam Roberts of Balliol College Oxford have explained (pdf).

The UN doesn't allow for the notion of continuing authority. In other words an individual government like the Blair administration in London in 2003 cannot just latch onto any old UN resolution it pleases, and use it as a justification for the use of force. Resolution 678 was the UN mandate for using "all possible means" to eject Saddam Hussein's forces from Kuwait, which he had seized in an illegal act of aggression the previous August. Presumably, this was discharged when the Iraqi forces were thrown back from Kuwait in the late February of 1991.

Resolution 687 was the UN instrument for Saddam to rid Iraq of weapons of mass destruction, chemical, biological as well as nuclear. It was initialled by senior Iraqi military commanders at a ceremony at Safwan, near the Kuwait border. The mistake was that the American-led coalition did not force Saddam to come to Safwan personally to sign - for that would have given the deal the full strength of an international treaty.

IMPEACH CHENEY

They Thought They Were Free - Read by Dave Emory

The Germans, 1933-45

Excerpt from pages 166-73 of "They Thought They Were Free" First published in 1955

By Milton Mayer

But Then It Was Too Late

"What no one seemed to notice," said a colleague of mine, a philologist, "was the ever widening gap, after 1933, between the government and the people. Just think how very wide this gap was to begin with, here in Germany. And it became always wider. You know, it doesn’t make people close to their government to be told that this is a people’s government, a true democracy, or to be enrolled in civilian defense, or even to vote. All this has little, really nothing, to do with knowing one is governing.

"What happened here was the gradual habituation of the people, little by little, to being governed by surprise; to receiving decisions deliberated in secret; to believing that the situation was so complicated that the government had to act on information which the people could not understand, or so dangerous that, even if the people could understand it, it could not be released because of national security. And their sense of identification with Hitler, their trust in him, made it easier to widen this gap and reassured those who would otherwise have worried about it.

....

"Yes," I said.

"You see," my colleague went on, "one doesn’t see exactly where or how to move. Believe me, this is true. Each act, each occasion, is worse than the last, but only a little worse. You wait for the next and the next. You wait for one great shocking occasion, thinking that others, when such a shock comes, THE SHOCK DOCTRINE will join with you in resisting somehow. You don’t want to act, or even talk, alone; you don’t want to ‘go out of your way to make trouble.’ Why not?—Well, you are not in the habit of doing it. And it is not just fear, fear of standing alone, that restrains you; it is also genuine uncertainty.

"Uncertainty is a very important factor, and, instead of decreasing as time goes on, it grows. Outside, in the streets, in the general community, ‘everyone’ is happy. One hears no protest, and certainly sees none. You know, in France or Italy there would be slogans against the government painted on walls and fences; in Germany, outside the great cities, perhaps, there is not even this. In the university community, in your own community, you speak privately to your colleagues, some of whom certainly feel as you do; but what do they say? They say, ‘It’s not so bad’ or ‘You’re seeing things’ or ‘You’re an alarmist.’

Michael Parenti - Terrorism, Globalism & Conspiracy

"Coincidence Theory: By shear chance things just happen repeatedly and coincidentally to benefit their interests without any conscious connivance by them, which is most uncanny. There is also: Stupidity Theory, Innocence Theory, Momentary Aberration Theory, Incompetence Theory, Unintended Consequences Theory and Innocent Cultural Proclivities Theory."

- Michael Parenti

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wildbilln864

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Thu Feb-28-08 12:47 PM
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1. Thanks SLAD! nt

:hi:

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seemslikeadream

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Thu Feb-28-08 12:58 PM
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2. You are welcome wild...........and

LEAVE toasteroven08 AND Honkbag-08 ALONE THEY'RE HUMAN BEINGS!

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Grateful for Hope

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Thu Feb-28-08 01:48 PM
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3. LOL!

BTW, thanks for posting this, SLaD.

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Twist_U_Up

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Mon Mar-10-08 02:39 PM
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4. Great Work SLAD....All for a pack of lies.........

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seemslikeadream

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Mon Mar-10-08 08:56 PM
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5. Did ya hear? Even Feith calls Bush a liar

Edited on Mon Mar-10-08 08:59 PM by seemslikeadream

Douglas J. Feith, in a massive score-settling work, portrays an intelligence community and a State Department that repeatedly undermined plans he developed as undersecretary of defense for policy and conspired to undercut President Bush's policies.

Among the disclosures made by Feith in "War and Decision," scheduled for release next month by HarperCollins, is Bush's declaration, at a Dec. 18, 2002, National Security Council meeting, that "war is inevitable." The statement came weeks before U.N. weapons inspectors reported their initial findings on Iraq and months before Bush delivered an ultimatum to Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein. Feith, who says he took notes at the meeting, registered it as a "momentous comment."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/08/AR2008030802724.html?hpid=topnews

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