Fifth ‘anniversary’ of Kucinich warnings, speech on war with Iraq

http://www.dennis4president.com/go/homepage-items/fifth-%91anniversary%92-of-kucinich-warnings,-speech-on-war-with-iraq/


"Five years ago tomorrow (Wednesday, October 3), Ohio Congressman Dennis Kucinich stood on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives to deliver an impassioned, point-by-point refutation of the Bush Administration’s arguments seeking passage of the Iraq War Resolution. For days leading up to that moment, Kucinich also widely circulated his own independently conducted analysis of the “intelligence” that the Administration had presented to Congress in support of the resolution..

Eight days later, despite the warnings of Kucinich and 132 other members of the House whom he had managed to persuade to oppose this prelude to war, the majority of the House and the majority of the Senate gave the President the war powers he sought.

Among those supporting the “Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002" were Senators Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, Chris Dodd, and Joe Biden, all of whom spoke forcefully in favor of the President’s strategy – all four of whom are now Democratic Presidential candidates. All four subsequently approved additional measures for supplemental appropriations to fund the war, as did Democratic Senator Barack Obama after he was elected to the Senate in 2004.

Now, five years after they approved a war that should never have been authorized in the first place, those same Democrats are scrambling to explain, excuse, or defend their votes. At the same time, the foremost among them are refusing to pledge an end to the war, admitting that it may extend well beyond 2013.

Kucinich, the only Democratic candidate for President who voted against the original war authorization and every war-appropriation since, has recently raised loud warnings, in the Congress and in public statements, that House-approved and Senate-approve measures targeted towards Iran are “dangerously and frighteningly similar” to those anti-Iraq resolutions approved five years ago."


IraqFloorSpeech
Full text
http://www2.kucinich.us/files/pdfs/IraqFloorSpeech2002.pdf

"Vote "NO'' On Iraq War Resolution US Statement by Representative Dennis Kucinich (D-OH), October 3, 2002

Before the House of Representatives

"As the vote on whether or not this Nation goes to war approaches in this Chamber, a vote which most surely will come within a few days, I think it is important, Mr. Speaker, for us to be able to make the case to the American people as to why it is not appropriate for this country to go to war and to encourage the American people to call their Members to make sure that government of the people, by the people, and for the people does prevail..."


October 2, 2002: Independent Intelligence Analysis:
http://www2.kucinich.us/files/pdfs/Oct2002Analysis.pdf

If the people who voted for it where given the same information, "pack o lies" that we were given, shouldn't we cut them some slack?

I still remember Colin Powell's speech at the UN. I must say I believed him. He made a very persuasive case. But if we where lied to convincingly, isn't it just as possible that they were lied to just as convincingly?

I mean, here's a nut job, Saddam, who actually did invade a neighbor. And in the post 9-11 mindset, I can see people voting in favor of it.

Now at the same time, people who voted against it, said they were not convinced by the intel. I really would love to see exactly what they had access to.

And also, what did they vote for? Wasn't it to use force, and not necessarily invade, occupy, build the largest embassy on the planet, make permanent military bases and then turn in into a mini-America?

Not disagreeing, just trying to get more info...

Even I knew the aluminum tube and biological warfare reseach trucks was a bunch of CRAP! Just as a technician. And many scientist posted about the aluminum tube shit.

and also so they could go to war w/Iraq.

Everybody wanted to blame someone so they believed the flimsiest of evidence....except a few. Dennis was among those who chose to look beneath the lies.


I remember that Dennis spoke out even then....I listened....why didn't more?

I thought,,,, dumbly I guess,, that Colin Powell was the voice of moderation. I trusted his judgment.

I still can't understand what happened. Was Powell duped, or was he in on it?

Instead of doing the honorable thing and resigning, he repeated the Bush lies at the UN.

He's certainly not the only general to "cave" in this war....

http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=107_cong_bills&docid=f:h2977ih.txt.pdf

Does the fact that he expects to be forgiven for carelessly inserting conspiracy theory material into a bill, or supporting a flag-burning amendment, or having an anti-abortion position for years mean he's going to forgive his fellow candidates for their 2002 vote?

generated hatred against our country or created new terrorists as the invasion of Iraq has done? And the money we've spent on this war instead of providing for the people of our nation...health care, education, job security and rebuilding the infrastructure.


One to two trillion for this war by some estimates, I fail to see how they compare!


And he has explained his position on abortion here, quite well IMO, and would be able to pull both sides together.

Dennis Kucinich on Abortion in America
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DiVKtwS-UvM

U.K. government has admitted to spraying British public with deadly toxins.
Link to Guardian article
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4398507,00.html

The UN laughed at the forged Niger documents...it took a few hours on "the google" to prove they were made up...

you could tell Colin was lying in his speech ...'these are solid sources, these are not assertions (seriously we're not making this up)'

The US knew that the UN knew we were full of shit, so we started spying on them to see which votes were able to be bought.

Then they caught us doing that.

Our Congress has no excuse for going along with the BS.

The classified documents appearing to depict an Iraqi attempt to purchase yellowcake uranium from Niger had allegedly been suspected to be fraudulent by some individuals in U.S. intelligence, according to news reports. According to further news accounts of the situation, by early 2002 investigations by both the CIA and the State Department had found the documents to be inaccurate....

Further, in March 2003, the Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) released results of his analysis of the documents. Reportedly, it took IAEA officials only a matter of hours to determine that these documents were fake. Using little more than a Google search, IAEA experts discovered indications of a crude forgery, such as the use of incorrect names of Nigerian officials.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellowcake_forgery

Congress' job is to research what they are voting on- WTF are they doing???

The full National Intelligence Estimate contained information that could have brought the IWR full stop. The Intelligence Committee ordered and received the full NIE, including backup data, and saw the contradictions between it and what Bushco was claiming and telling the public. Members of that committee, notably Graham, Durbin and Levin, demanded a declassified version for the rest of Congress to be able to discuss in public, but when they received it it was something different, not a declassified NIE at all and without the exceptions made in the NIE to an argument for war. However, the Intelligence Committee placed the original NIE in a room for individual members of congress to visit and read. Very few bothered to go there. This was an extreme lapse in responsibility to the public, in my opinion.

In addition, there were various alternative amendments, such as the Byrd amendment which limited the authorization to one year; or the Levin amendment which required a new vote by congress after a new UN resolution was achieved. Ted Kennedy has said that if the Levin amendment had passed there would have been time, they were that close, for defeating the IWR. Some of the candidates voted for one alternative amendment or another. But between not reading the NIE and not voting or voting against the alternative amendments, yet voting YES to the IWR, they don't get slack from me.

It would have been thrown out of a U.S. court case.

People, many of our leaders, were looking for confirmation of the demonization. It was confirmation bias.

Have to admit, I trusted the son of a bitch. I mean, with all those fancy pictures and images.

One of the biggest hoaxes in history!

It really burns that people will let that slide so easily.

Sure intel can be wrong.

But when you build a case with twenty points, and every single point is not true ,then you are either:

A. On drugs

B. As Dumb as a rock

C. A Fu$king liar.

The correct answer in this particular case is "C". Okay,,, well maybe really when you think about it it would be "B"+"C". Course on the other hand if you consider Bush was really behind it, it would be all of the above!

Scumbags.....

But still,,,, I got a feel for Powell. They must have "pinched" him, they must have had some dirt on him. It's bet anything on that.

you or I did. This is their full time job and this vote was a BIG ticket item so to speak, regardless of how Bush messed up they relinquished their duty to declare war.

Others took the time, read all the reports and questioned the intelligence. If they can be fooled by people in their own government imagine how they can be fooled by people in a foreign government.

And it is exactly at times of heightened fear and threats to our nation that we need someone who can read through the BS and make a decision that's serves the best interests of our country. In addition Edwards and Clinton also voted for the Patriot Act leaving Feingold the only person in the Senate to have the courage to vote no. BTW Kucinich also voted no.


Three strikes...

Failed to read and question available material even though Senator Bob Graham said he encouraged everyone to read the classified report and ending with a statement of 'Blood is going to be on your hands.'

Fooled by the Bush administration?

Delegated their responsibilities to Bush.

and was positive that he was full of shit. Then again, I didn't care at the time if America appeared weak by seeking peaceful solutions in the wake of 9/11. I also saw the opportunism involved in declaring an open-ended "war on terror" - it smacke of the war on drugs and we all know how bogus that was. Fear and pride did not affect my judgement. Cynicism did.

The majority chose to error on the side of caution, thinking it was more cautious to invade, than to appear weak and vulnerable by not attacking. Bad judgement then, as we see now, but not everybody got sucked in. I'm not saying I'm superior for knowing, but I always tried really hard to remain objective, critical, and emotionally detatched after 9/11, because I was cynical enough to think the vultures would try to make the most of it. I'm truly sorry to say I told you so.

If you want proof that this is a fake, fear inspired, propaganda war look no further than the name itself.

"The War On Terrorism"

Exactly like the fake war on drugs. Two wars that can never be won.

You can never win the war on drugs, because there will always drugs.

And you can never win the war on terrorism, because there will always be terrorists, and the world will always be a dangerous unpredictable place.

I wish these Democrats would fire back and ask the chicken-hawks about there plans for victory in this war. How will things look? A world with no more angry disenfranchised people? No more terrorist?

I'd suggest a trip to Disneyland for them, in particular I would direct them to fantasy-land.

looked at the same evidence and said that is was about oil, it leads me to believe that the rest either were incompetent and didn't see it or they felt the money that certain companies would be making and possibly kicked back to them was worth the deaths and cost to Americans. And now they want to raise OUR taxes because they made a stupid decision. Dennis Kucinich has been speaking for the people of the country for awhile and because he is ignored in the media, the people he represents have now turned a cold shoulder to him, its really strange to me.

Hell he just voted no as the rest didn't even vote to expand the debt and open up more money for the war and people still support those candidates. I really don't understand the Americans that support the other candidates when their candidates don't represent what they want...non profit health care for all as a right and and out of this war. Dennis Kucinich does want these things but he is considered unelectable by some, when we make the votes. That means anyone the people want is electable.

They were afraid to go up against the bloodlust of the slobbering media machine.

http://www.snopes.com/quotes/goering.asp



Admittedly, courage to go in the other direction is rare.

save in his (or her) own country".

Posted here...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=385&topic_id=14817&mesg_id=14817

Direct youtube link...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SCTpNDkBqmM

that should ruffle a few feathers?

Ah! the fairness of the old days.

that's a shame because if he had the money of the Clintons he would win.

campaign material here in NM. From richer campaigns you get it free.

They just care about scoring higher in the big game.

My cynical side coming out. :(