Olbermann: ‘Who Among Us Will Stop This War, This War Of Lies’
by Pamela LeaveyIn his “Special Comment” tonight about the “Democrats’ deal with President Bush to continue financing this unspeakable war in Iraq—and to do so on his terms,” Keith Olbermann said, “The entire government has failed us on Iraq.” Only the few that have bravely stood and announced they will vote “NO” in no uncertain terms will have done the right thing… Or maybe the madness of it all is to show that this is a Republican war by forcing a vote that will be only supported by Republicans. Until the vote comes down, we just won’t know.
In the meantime, Keith Olbermann minces no words:
The text of Olbermann’s Special Comment is as follows:
This is, in fact, a comment about… betrayal.
Few men or women elected in our history—whether executive or legislative, state or national—have been sent into office with a mandate more obvious, nor instructions more clear:
Get us out of Iraq.
Yet after six months of preparation and execution—half a year gathering the strands of public support; translating into action, the collective will of the nearly 70 percent of Americans who reject this War of Lies, the Democrats have managed only this:
- The Democratic leadership has surrendered to a president—if not the worst president, then easily the most selfish, in our history—who happily blackmails his own people, and uses his own military personnel as hostages to his asinine demand, that the Democrats “give the troops their money”;
- The Democratic leadership has agreed to finance the deaths of Americans in a war that has only reduced the security of Americans;
- The Democratic leadership has given Mr. Bush all that he wanted, with the only caveat being, not merely meaningless symbolism about benchmarks for the Iraqi government, but optional meaningless symbolism about benchmarks for the Iraqi government.
- The Democratic leadership has, in sum, claimed a compromise with the Administration, in which the only things truly compromised, are the trust of the voters, the ethics of the Democrats, and the lives of our brave, and doomed, friends, and family, in Iraq.
You, the men and women elected with the simplest of directions—Stop The War—have traded your strength, your bargaining position, and the uniform support of those who elected you… for a handful of magic beans.
You may trot out every political cliché from the soft-soap, inside-the-beltway dictionary of boilerplate sound bites, about how this is the “beginning of the end” of Mr. Bush’s “carte blanche” in Iraq, about how this is a “first step.”
Well, Senator Reid, the only end at its beginning… is our collective hope that you and your colleagues would do what is right, what is essential, what you were each elected and re-elected to do.
Because this “first step”… is a step right off a cliff.
And this President!
How shameful it would be to watch an adult… hold his breath, and threaten to continue to do so, until he turned blue.
But how horrifying it is… to watch a President hold his breath and threaten to continue to do so, until innocent and patriotic Americans in harm’s way, are bled white.
You lead this country, sir?
You claim to defend it?
And yet when faced with the prospect of someone calling you on your stubbornness—your stubbornness which has cost 3,431 Americans their lives and thousands more their limbs—you, Mr. Bush, imply that if the Democrats don’t give you the money and give it to you entirely on your terms, the troops in Iraq will be stranded, or forced to serve longer, or have to throw bullets at the enemy with their bare hands.
How transcendentally, how historically, pathetic.
Any other president from any other moment in the panorama of our history would have, at the outset of this tawdry game of political chicken, declared that no matter what the other political side did, he would insure personally—first, last and always—that the troops would not suffer.
A President, Mr. Bush, uses the carte blanche he has already, not to manipulate an overlap of arriving and departing Brigades into a ‘second surge,’ but to say in unequivocal terms that if it takes every last dime of the monies already allocated, if it takes reneging on government contracts with Halliburton, he will make sure the troops are safe—even if the only safety to be found, is in getting them the hell out of there.
Well, any true President would have done that, Sir.
You instead, used our troops as political pawns, then blamed the Democrats when you did so.
Not that these Democrats, who had this country’s support and sympathy up until 48 hours ago, have not since earned all the blame they can carry home.
“We seem to be very near the bleak choice between war and shame,” Winston Churchill wrote to Lord Moyne in the days after the British signed the Munich accords with Germany in 1938. “My feeling is that we shall choose shame, and then have war thrown in, a little later…”
That’s what this is for the Democrats, isn’t it?
Their “Neville Chamberlain moment” before the Second World War.
All that’s missing is the landing at the airport, with the blinkered leader waving a piece of paper which he naively thought would guarantee “peace in our time,” but which his opponent would ignore with deceit.
The Democrats have merely streamlined the process.Their piece of paper already says Mr. Bush can ignore it, with impugnity.
And where are the Democratic presidential hopefuls this evening?
See they not, that to which the Senate and House leadership has blinded itself?
Judging these candidates based on how they voted on the original Iraq authorization, or waiting for apologies for those votes, is ancient history now.
The Democratic nomination is likely to be decided… tomorrow.
The talk of practical politics, the buying into of the President’s dishonest construction “fund-the-troops-or-they-will-be-in-jeopardy,” the promise of tougher action in September, is falling not on deaf ears, but rather falling on Americans who already told you what to do, and now perceive your ears as closed to practical politics.
Those who seek the Democratic nomination need to—for their own political futures and, with a thousand times more solemnity and importance, for the individual futures of our troops—denounce this betrayal, vote against it, and, if need be, unseat Majority Leader Reid and Speaker Pelosi if they continue down this path of guilty, fatal acquiescence to the tragically misguided will of a monomaniacal president.
For, ultimately, at this hour, the entire government has failed us.
- Mr. Reid, Mr. Hoyer, and the other Democrats… have failed us.
They negotiated away that which they did not own, but had only been entrusted by us to protect: our collective will as the citizens of this country, that this brazen War of Lies be ended as rapidly and safely as possible.- Mr. Bush and his government… have failed us.
They have behaved venomously and without dignity—of course.
That is all at which Mr. Bush is gifted.
We are the ones providing any element of surprise or shock here.With the exception of Senator Dodd and Senator Edwards, the Democratic presidential candidates have (so far at least) failed us.
They must now speak, and make plain how they view what has been given away to Mr. Bush, and what is yet to be given away tomorrow, and in the thousand tomorrows to come.
Because for the next fourteen months, the Democratic nominating process—indeed the whole of our political discourse until further notice—has, with the stroke of a cursed pen, become about one thing, and one thing alone.
The electorate figured this out, six months ago.
The President and the Republicans have not—doubtless will not.
The Democrats will figure it out, during the Memorial Day recess, when they go home and many of those who elected them will politely suggest they stay there—and permanently.
Because, on the subject of Iraq…
The people have been ahead of the media….
Ahead of the government…
Ahead of the politicians…
For the last year, or two years, or maybe three.
Our politics… is now about the answer to one briefly-worded question.
Mr. Bush has failed.
Mr. Warner has failed.
Mr. Reid has failed.
So.
Who among us will stop this war—this War of Lies?
To he or she, fall the figurative keys to the nation.
To all the others—presidents and majority leaders and candidates and rank-and-file Congressmen and Senators of either party—there is only blame… for this shameful, and bi-partisan, betrayal.
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Democrats deny the war on terror for what it is; a real war against millions who want us dead. Edwards voiced what legions on the far-left in this country believe, that somehow the Islamo-fascist threat is contrived. This is a dangerous naiveté that threatens the future of America. Because of blind hatred for the Bush administration, liberals are willing to sacrifice America’s future and security. In more than 50 countries around the globe, young people train daily for the opportunity to kill Americans en mass. Turning your head to this reality presents a problem. You deny the daily activities in hundreds of training camps from the Sudan to Indonesia to Syria. You deny the mindset and programming that allows a person to strap a bomb to their person and commit suicide in order to murder. John Edwards is not someone who should occupy the Oval Office. His denial is a danger to us all.
truthteller
Thank you for sharing. The blind hatred comes from folks like you who come to liberal blogs and spout your spew. We all know terrorism exists and honestly Bush has not made us safer and he’s clueless about how to.
So again thank you for sharing. The biggest danger to any of us is the Commander Guy.
WOW! I can watch this video for hours. Thanks for speaking out, thanks for posting it Pamela. It was quite a piece.
Islamo fascism is real.
Islamo fascism is a real threat.
Now for the whole truth. On the ultimate scale of things, Islamo fascism is a real small threat, able for now and for the forseeable future to be managed without resort by us to the use of military force of any kind in any place.
These right wingers would have us stumbling around trying to shoot flies with elephant guns, causing ever more damage and danger in the process.
Brilliant. Just brilliant.
A decent President could defuse a hostage situation by talking down the terrorists involved. May we some day be fortunate enough to once again be blessed with decent leadership.
The hysteria is not that appealing. There is going to be an orderly handing over of power to a new administration, any desires to the contrary from the old one notwithstanding. The military of this country will never turn out into the streets against the people. PERIOD!
But the hysteria proves that we clearly need to elevate the level of political discourse in the nation, and the primary salutary effect of considering and convening a Constitutional Convention would be to accomplish just that. The seminal political event of the last two hundred plus years could be counted on to wonderfully focus national attention on our current circumstances, and there is no other option available to us that would engender the same level of concentration and wide ranging, in depth discussion.
We don’t need to change The Constitution. Would we choose to fine tune it? Possibly.
What we do need, though, is to make sure that we get things back on a path that we can honorably and safely travel for at least the next one hundred years. Anyone who fails to see that this is a desperate need right now is simply not looking and listening.
There are forces at work that could permanently rend the fabric of our society. The best way to counter these forces would be to embark on an exercise of careful national reflection and the only vehicle that our political system offers for being able to do so is for we the people to convene ourselves into the most powerful body in the land. If the politicians can’t get the nation under control, at least the nation, thankfully, can get the politicians under control.
WE NEED A CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION NOW!!!
American democracy is not threatened by an Article V convention — a convention looks like the only way to save it. Learn a lot more at http://www.foavc.org and become a member of our dynamic new non-partisan national organization…..
Mr. Hirschorn:
I’ve looked at your site. Your thought that it is possible and desireable to structure and conduct a Constitutional Convention that is not a Constitutional Convention is a bit odd. Do you fear that the American people cannot be trusted with too much democracy? Or are you more focused on marketing, and fear that we would be afraid of the unknown?
There is no higher body politic than “the people”. All else in government flows from that (the consent of the governed) and are mechanisms created solely for our convenience.
Now, however, there is a consenus forming that the system, itself, is not functioning correctly. Is it malfunctioning because of a fault in the system, or because of something seperate from the design of the system? Those are the kinds of issues that a wide ranging Constitutional Convention can hammer out. And, as you acknowledge, we need fear no proposed changes because all proposals are subject to ratification.
Once, a very long time ago, the country invested the time, energy, money, and talent to hammer out a blueprint of a social contract, and created a glorious work product. Now, however, there are real questions about whether it still can and will take us where we want, as a nation, to go. Or is the question only that the journey has become vastly more complex, and we only need to try to reach another consensus on the destination that we want to strive for?
In any event, a Constitutional Convention provides the framework within which such a an important and wide ranging national discussion can be held. We know what happens when we break into groups that talk past each other. A Constitutional Convention constitutes a forum where everyone in the country would listen to every idea and viewpoint because the publicity would tell them that this is the single most important thing that has happened on the planet since the last time that we all made the effort to talk and listen to each other.
What is paramount in any discussion of the Iraq War is the question of it’s legality. No matter what some may say, there is no doubt this is an illicit war.
1. Weapons – false
2. Saddam connected with al Qaeda – false
3. Any argument to the contrary is a BLATANT LIE.
But the fact remains that Bush did not “get us into the war”. High ranking Pentagon officials, intelligence officials got us into this war.
The Pentagon’s sole purpose is to make war. To prepare for wars both plausible and implausible. By necessary extension, their ultimate purpose is to preserve American dominance, and they see 3,431 American lives as a small sacrifice. Iraq and Afghanistan represnt stepping stones encircling Russia, China, and even India(a rising though struggling power with an anti-American history). It is common knowledge that conflict with another nuclear power will be a case of mutually assured destruction. But the Pentagon’s aim is to preserve the American edge, to prevent the US from fading out like the old British empire.
What people need to realize is that it’s not all about Bush being an idiot, or Republicans being blind and Democrats being cowards. It is the fact that the Pentagon believes holding the dominance the British empire once held is worth the loss of 3,431 American lives. Thus, in their minds:
Cost (American dominance) = American lives
Do the rest of us believe so? Would it be unacceptable to us if we cannot absolutely dominate and bully other countries into submission? Do we believe that holding a global bully pulpit is worth thousands of real, breathing, hoping, and suffering American lives? No, and that’s why more than 70% of us oppose the war. But understand that the role of the American war making machine is war, and not the quality of life or freedom for ordinary Americans. While America’s founders believed freedom was the one cause worth fighting for, the modern government sees freedom and American lives as expendable factors in maintaining US supremacy.
Don’t like it? You, the populace, elected a public official who was at such an intellectual level that he would buy into it. Twice.
Bill
The populace here on the Dem Daily did not elect the idiot twice. Trust me. We elected the other guys.
To add to my previous post, it is not “just about oil”. It is not “Bush’s war”. George Walker Bush is not bending over a world map planning his next move in the “War on Terror”. Americans voted in 2004 to keep this man in office, and he bought into this policy that senior military officials presented him. If you don’t want this to happen again, don’t vote based on such abstract notions as religion or “family values” again. I’m sure George Walker Bush is the epitome of the good Samaritan.
Bill
I dunno, I think I would beg to differ. BushCo aka Project for a New American Century planned this war and those in the Pentagon who didn’t play by BushCo rules got the can. There have been plenty in the Pentagon who haven’t agreed with Bush and his cronies. This war is about oil, globalalization and pay back against Saddam and who knows what else. But it’s Bush’s war.
I’m pretty sure that Bush would like to get out of Iraq, but he can’t do so without admitting that he’s responsible for the deaths of, well, everyone. And he’s perfectly willing to continue killing American troops in order to shift responsibility onto the next President.
On the other hand, it’s important to recognize how the Pentagon works. It’s functions are not solely the will of the “generals” you hear about. For example, during the first Gulf War many soldiers were overexposed to depleted uranium due to using radioactive weapons more potent than admitted by the Pentagon. Unlikely that four-star generals or the sort were involved, but there were elements in hte Pentagon who purposefully and knowngly screwed those troops over for the sake of expediency.
If you doubt the irrational combativeness of the Pentagon, I will offer a more recent example: China. China has never fought a war of agression with the United States. In fact, the only conflicts between the two countries where the United States was not the aggressor on Chinese soil were Vietnam and Korea. During those conflicts, the United States was an avowed enemy of China, and obviously China had legitimate interest in keeping the US away from its periphery.
But a few days ago, the Pentagon released a report essentially warning China not to try to challenge US military supremacy. To what purpose. The relationship between the two nations, as well as the high capacities of both parties, ensure that open warfare between the two is essentially suicidal. While China is a serious strategic rival to the United States, incensing this country with certain trade practices and a less than perfect government, it is not in any sense a military/open conflict threat. The Pentagon exists solely to fight wars, real or imaginary, pertinent or unnecessary.
I’m not denying that Cheney and private military contractors played an important role, hence you “BushCo”. But on the other hand, there is no reason to turn this into a partisan attack. Democrats don’t have a monopoly on integrity; their recent vote to pass Bush’s bill is clear indication they too are willing to sacrifice American lives for political expediency. Taking a lesson from the Chinese, leaders of an army cannot be guilty of “over-solicitude for his men, exposing him to worry and trouble.” What this means is that the temporary comfort of troops should not come at the cost of prolonging the war. While a temporary shortage of funds may cause inconveniences, far greater is the death toll and distress of a prolonged war. Also, I would like to take a contemporary line from President Bush himself. We don’t negotiate with terrorists, even when there are lives on the line, because this creates the environment where terrorists know they can acheive their goals using hostages. On a similar token, we should not negotiate with Bush when he uses our troops as hostages for his war.
As I’ve said, Democrats are not necessarily better than Republicans, and I would deign to say that the Senator who has displayed the greatest integrity and ability to lead is Republican Senator Chuck Hagel. He has shown more spine in opposing his party than the Democrats have shown in forsaking their enormous constituency.
btw, I forgot to add, that quote was from Sun Zi’s Art of War, which is required reading for miltary strategists. Bush could start by reading this classic. If he reads at all, that is.
More to add on the war, for I feel it is important for many Americans to break the simplistic view they have on the subject.
No more comparisons to Vietnam, because you don’t know what you’re talking about. You either jump the bandwagon, or you only see superficial similarities, but you haven’t done any thinking.
In Vietnam, there were already two governments of the country, one friendly one hostile. Thus, there was actually a greater chance of success, unlike Iraq, which was ruled by one single brutal regime. Of course, Vietnam ended up a disaster anyways, but right now it is improving, and ties with the US have healed dramatically, though not to the extent we would wish.
Also, in Vietnam, the objective of the enemy was clear, to get the “Yankees” out. What we have in Iraq is the phenomenon of hostile parties trying to keep us in. They want to fight us on Arab soil, holding the advantage, using their style of warfare, i.e. human bombs and shields. Thus while some Iraqis desire peace and independence, there are factions (namely foreign non-Iraqi Islamists who entered the country after Baath fell) that stoke violence for the purpose of retaining US forces in the area so they can engage our troops in their unconventional brutalities. The question is, how do we get out when our enemies want to keep us in?
I think on some level, Bush is correct in saying that if terrorsits engage our troops in Iraq they have less resources to engage us on our turf. What he fails to mention is that the billions, possibly trillions soon, spent on the Iraq war could have been used instead to strengthen our internal security. Mr. George Tenet has recently said that given the state our National Security is in at the moment, he is shocked there haven’t been frequent, constant attacks. One outcome of withdrawing our troops is that we will need to finally face the sorry condition of our country’s internal security.
So, ummm, not sure what more to say. If, god forbid, there are future attacks on American soil, various elements in the government will call for further eroding of American freedoms and rights, to a greater extent than even Bush has accomplished with the Patriot act. It’s a pretty bad situation, my classical understatement. And by the way, has anyone seen the new childrens’ book series: “Where’s bin Laden?”. Oh, that’s right, the series has been discontinued for four years now. I never did see the bearded man.
Bill
You make some good points and in some I think you contradict yourself.
As for integrity in leadership to end the war, Hagel is but one of a few Senators who have shown that.
I am aware I’ve thrown forth some contradictory ideas, and the truth is politics is often full of contradictions. Nothing is black and white, and I firmly believe that the idea of engaging Iraq came from a third party. It was probably in the works for a long time, just like the situation with China. Can we put all the blame on Bush? I don’t know. Bush has embraced the war with such obstinacy despite all evidence being against him. He displays extreme intellectual shortcomings, but he has shown an adeptness in “getting what he wants”, which strongly raises the possibility that he is not so much foolish as he is plain malicious. Even though Iraq was likely someone else’s longterm project to begin with, I believe a president like Bill Clinton for example, would not have bought it. One point I was trying to make earlier, perhaps not clearly enough, is that the country’s situation can rarely be comppletely attributed to the president. The president can only take the country in a general direction, and ultimately success or failure rests on the shoulders of the American people, not politicians. Therefore, due to the very nature of the job, it is hard for a president to improve the country, but much easier to instigate failure, like Bush has. Similar to how it is much easier to demolish a building as opposed to actually building one. Anyways, it’s sad that such petty issues distract us from what is a truly pressing matter, the environment. Bush has just rejected nearly unanimous G8 environmental proposals, yet again.