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Feature Article
My Vote; Sincere or
Strategic?
By Lila Schow
Where to
From Here?
by
Jodie Hemerda
KBR [(Kellog, Brown, and Root), a
daughter company of Halliburton (once run by VP Dick Cheney)] is now
requesting, and the army is allowing, US soldiers to ride "shot gun" in
KBR convoys hauling KBR goods all over Iraq. KBR is afraid to be out on
the roads alone and want our US soldiers to risk their lives riding shot
gun for their missions.
[N]one have had military training on defensive driving, proper convoy
operations, avoiding ambushes, navigating around IED's [hidden roadside
bombs], proper procedure for calling in support or medivac or fire
support, procedures to follow after taking enemy fire, the list goes on.
These drivers are simply paid drivers that are making roughly 5 -8 times
our wages and get paid whether the freight arrives or not.
Real Stories
from Real Americans: A Plea for Help
By Spiros D - Baghdad
Depleted Uranium Update
InterAct
has been working with Senator Allard and Senator Campbell's offices to
introduce a bill Suspending the Sale and Use of Depleted Uranium in
Munitions.
We're on the brink of making a
difference, we just need more volunteers!
Find out how you can help.
Accounts of
Depleted Uranium reported by various media outlets around the world
On the day Operation Iraqi
Freedom suffered the 1,000th death of a United States soldier, some quick
numbers are in order:
●
1,095 days
since the attacks of September 11;
●
538 days since
the invasion and occupation of Iraq;
●
1,001 American
soldiers dead in Iraq;
●
1,132 total
Coalition soldiers dead in Iraq;
●
More than
20,000 'medical evacuations' of American soldiers from Iraq;
●
More than
10,000 civilians dead in Iraq;
●
0 weapons of
mass destruction;
●
0 democratic
elections in Iraq;
●
0 connections
between Iraq and the attacks of September 11;
●
0 captures of
Osama bin Laden, in Iraq or anywhere else;
●
$1.7 trillion
to be spent on Iraq in the next decade, according to the American Academy
of Arts and Sciences report by the Committee on International Security
Studies (CISS).
One Thousand and One By
William Rivers Pitt
What’s your reaction
to
InterAct,
our stories or our letters?
Contact us and we’ll print your
comments.
REPUBLICANS, OUT OF IDEAS, ASK PROSECUTORS TO
ARREST MICHAEL MOORE
|
 |
 |
Full of practical
things you can do to defeat Bush, our book—50 Ways YOU Can Show
George the Door in 2004—is just what you need to get off your couch
and make a difference this election season. Or, there’s plenty of stuff
you can do from your couch, if that’s where you want to stay! |
InterAct’s
5 Minutes to Make a Difference
Help protect dolphins,
turtles, clean air, roadless parks and forests, women, the ocean, crucially
your VOTE!
Go on a NO More CARB Diet in 2004 - let's work our
buts off to get rid of Cheney, Ashcroft, Rumsfeld, and Bush (CARB)!
VOTE!
With ordinary Americans' wages eaten
up by inflation and their debt at nosebleed heights, consumer spending -
which accounts for two-thirds of economic activity - will not be able to
get the economy humming. July's summer sales on cars accounted for
virtually all of that month's big-ticket spending - most of it on
credit. Already, economic growth in the second quarter has been revised
downward a bit and consumer confidence registered an unexpectedly steep
decline in August.
A new study of recent Commerce
Department data by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities confirms
that wage and salary growth has been exceptionally poor, while profits
have been unusually robust.
Mr. Bush tends to attribute the
unevenness of the economic recovery to the shocks that were already
developing before his election (the stock market meltdown and corporate
scandals) and those beyond his control (the 9/11 terrorist attacks). But
this is the first time in more than 50 years that workers have for so
long and so deeply failed to share in the benefits of growth.
Working Your Way
Down The New York Times | Editorial
Editorials:
Notable and Newsworthy
Challenging a Media
Myth: '68 Riots Didn't Doom Humphrey By Greg Mitchell
Absentee Ballots Go Absent by Greg Palast
The Real Issue: Bush
is Incompetent By Richard Reeves
Serving Canapes,
Then Recalling the 107th Floor By
Dan Barry
The Unseen Cost of
War: American Minds By M.L. Lyle
The Unwinnable War By
James Carroll
A Turn to
the (Religious) Right By Dr. Robert Abele
Soldiers of Fortune
- at What Price? By Jonathan Turley
Why Venezuela has Voted Again for Their 'Negro
e Indio' President By Greg
Palast
Fabricating Terror By
William Rivers Pitt
Not Scared Yet? Try
Connecting These Dots By Ray McGovern
1.3 Billion Reasons
to Worry about Oil Newsday Editorial
The Writing on
the Latrine Walls By William Rivers Pitt
Conscience and Political Organizing By Ted Glick
Mr. Bush and His 10 Ever-Changing Different Positions on Iraq: "A flip
and a flop and now just a flop." By Michael Moore
Russia's Foray into Preemptive Warfare a New Challenge to its Security
Establishment By Yevgeny Bendersky
How is it that civilians in a hijacked
plane were able to communicate with their loved ones, grasp a totally
new kind of enemy and weaponry and act to defend the nation's Capitol,
yet the president had "communication problems" on Air Force One and the
nation's defense chief didn't know what was going on until the horror
was all over?
Truth vs. Truth
Bush told voters jammed into a gym in the
Cleveland suburb of Broadview Heights that reforms his administration pushed
through last year would provide seniors with healthcare screenings and a
prescription drug benefit in the next two years...
But he did not mention the 17% Medicare premium
increase for millions of elderly and disabled patients that his
administration imposed a day earlier. It takes effect next year.
President Bush claimed "we all thought we would find stockpiles of weapons"
in Iraq, and claimed that he had no inkling that his pre-war claims about
the Iraqi threat were weak
... But as a major new story shows, the President and
other top administration officials were repeatedly warned before the
invasion that its case for war was weak.
The Census Bureau released statistics showing that for the first time in
years, poverty had increased for three straight years, while the number of
Americans without health care increased to a record level
...
But instead of changing its economic and health care
policies, the Bush administration today is announcing plans to change the
way the statistics are compiled.
In his effort to claim he is the strongest candidate on national security,
President Bush has lately been speaking a lot about how he is doing
everything possible to track down terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi- the man
thought to be responsible for escalating attacks on U.S. soldiers in Iraq
...
But according to NBC News, it was Bush who in 2002 and
2003 rejected three plans to strike and neutralize Zarqawi because he
believed a successful strike would undermine the public case for targeting
Saddam Hussein.
In February, Rumsfeld touted the large number of Iraqis serving in security
forces that had completed training. Rumsfeld said, "there are over 210,000
Iraqis serving in the security forces. That is an amazing accomplishment.
There are a number of thousands more that are currently in training."...
Rumsfeld's statement was grossly inaccurate and he's
admitted, "we're training up their security forces now...about 105,000 are
now properly trained and equipped."
Displaying a brazen disregard for the facts, Vice President Cheney told an
audience in Cincinnati Thursday that Iraq had "provided safe harbor and
sanctuary...for Al Qaeda."...But
there is no evidence to support Cheney's claim. The 9/11 Commission - which
spent months exhaustively studying the issue - concluded there was no
"collaborative relationship" between Iraq and al-Qaeda.
 |
Dead and injured
Iraqi civilians on Haifa Street, Baghdad, after a U.S. helicopter
attack.
(Photo: Ghaith Abdul-Ahad / Getty Images |
|
When the Rabbits
Get a Gun By William Rivers Pitt |
On a Positive Note
FOIA Lawsuit
and Torture Update
Veterans for Common Sense, with our coalition partners, achieved a
significant victory this week in a lawsuit against the CIA, FBI and DoD.
After months of stonewalling on a Freedom of Information Act request for
documents related to prisoner abuse, VCS, with the American Civil Liberties
Union, Physicians for Human Rights and Veterans for Peace, filed suit in
June against the agencies. The court ordered the agencies to begin producing
documents by August 23.
More information about the case is on our website at these links:
link
1,
link
2
Good News at
Last on the Iraq Reconstruction Process: Halliburton Held Accountable
The Defense Department
announced
that it was cutting off its contract with Halliburton for logistical support
for the troops and putting the work up for competitive bidding. Common Cause
has repeatedly protested the administration’s awarding of no-bid contracts,
especially to Halliburton. We consider this move good news that will save
taxpayers money and improve support for our troops, even as we are mindful
of the passing of a grim milestone of
1,000 U.S
military deaths in Iraq. Common
Cause
NEPAL
39 Metis (Male Transvestites) Released
The 39 metis (male transvestites) arrested in Kathmandu on August
9, were released on bail on August 20. The Blue Diamond Society, a local
organization which campaigns for the rights of sexual minorities, has sent
its ''sincere and grateful thanks'' for the work done on behalf of the 39,
all of whom are members of the Society. They were arrested on the street and
in bars and nightclubs. All were apparently told that they were being taken
to a meeting, and to an identity parade to pick out the man who had attacked
another meti on August 7. All 39 were reportedly kept together in a very
small and overcrowded cell. Police are alleged to have beaten two of the men
severely, and verbally abused all of them, saying that acid should be thrown
in their faces and they did not deserve to live.
Many of the 39 are illiterate, and were reportedly forced to sign
statements they could not read, while others, who could read, were not
allowed to see the documents they signed.
http://takeaction.amnestyusa.org/
Federal Court
Strikes Down Patriot Act
Surveillance Power as Unconstitutional
Saying that "democracy abhors undue secrecy," a federal court struck
down an entire Patriot Act provision that gives the government unchecked
authority to issue "National Security Letters" to obtain sensitive customer
records from Internet Service Providers and other businesses without
judicial oversight.
Read more>>
In this awful world where
the efforts of caring people often pale in comparison to what is done by
those who have power, how do I manage to stay involved and seemingly
happy?
I am totally confident not that the world will get better, but that we
should not give up the game before all the cards have been played.
The metaphor is deliberate; life is a gamble. Not to play is to foreclose
any chance of winning. To play, to act, is to create at least a
possibility of changing the world.
The
Optimism of Uncertainty By Howard Zinn
Colorado News
In the 2002
general election, a computer miscount overturned the House District 11
result in Wayne County, North Carolina. Incorrect programming caused
machines to skip several thousand party-line votes, both Republican and
Democratic. Fixing the error turned up 5,500 more votes and reversed the
election for state representative.
This crushing defeat never happened: Voting machines failed to tally
"yes" votes on the 2002 school bond issue in Gretna, Nebraska. This error
gave the false impression that the measure had failed miserably, but it
actually passed by a 2-to-1 margin. Responsibility for the errors was
attributed to ES&S, the Omaha company that had provided the ballots and
the machines.
According to the Chicago Tribune, "It was like being queen for a
day‹but only for 12 hours," said Richard Miholic, a losing Republican
candidate for alderman in 2003 who was told that he had won a Lake County,
Illinois, primary election. He was among 15 people in four races affected
by an ES&S vote-counting foul-up.
An Orange County, California, election computer made a 100 percent
error during the April 1998 school bond referendum. The Registrar of
Voters Office initially announced that the bond issue had lost by a wide
margin; in fact, it was supported by a majority of the ballots cast. The
error was attributed to a programmer's reversing the "yes" and "no"
answers in the software used to count the votes.
A computer program that was specially enhanced to speed the November
1993 Kane County, Illinois, election results to a waiting public did just
that unfortunately, it sped the wrong data. Voting totals for a dozen
Illinois races were incomplete, and in one case they suggested that a
local referendum proposal had lost when it actually had been approved. For
some reason, software that had worked earlier without a hitch had waited
until election night to omit eight precincts in the tally.
A squeaker‹no, a landslide‹oops, we reversed the totals‹and about
those absentee votes, make that 72-19, not 44-47. Software programming
errors, sorry. Oh, and reverse that election, we announced the wrong
winner. In the 2002 Clay County, Kansas, commissioner primary, voting
machines said Jerry Mayo ran a close race but lost, garnering 48 percent
of the vote, but a hand recount revealed Mayo had won by a landslide,
receiving 76 percent of the vote.
Sum of a Glitch
By Bev Harris
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|
It's absolutely essential that eight weeks from
today, on November 2nd, we make the right choice, because if we make the
wrong choice then the danger is that we'll get hit again,' the vice
president said, 'that we'll be hit in a way that will be devastating from
the standpoint of the United States, and that we'll fall back into the
pre-9/11 mind-set, if you will, that in fact these terrorist attacks are
just criminal acts and that we are not really at war.
Updates
● I am the first President in
U.S. history to enter office with a criminal record.
● I set an economic record for most private bankruptcies filed in any
12-month period.
● I set the all-time record for most foreclosures in a 12-month period.
● I set the all-time record for the biggest drop in the history of the
U.S. stock market. In my first year in office, over 2 million Americans
lost their jobs and that trend continues every month.
● I have protected my friends at Enron and Halliburton against
investigation or prosecution. More time and money was spent investigating
the Monica Lewinsky affair than has been spent
investigating one of the biggest corporate rip-offs in history.
● I appointed more convicted criminals to administration than any
President in U.S. history.
● I am the first President in U.S. history to have the United Nations
remove the U.S. from the Human Rights Commission.
● I am the first President in history to refuse United Nations election
inspectors (during the 2002 U.S. election).
● I set the all-time record for most days on vacation in any one-year
period. After taking off the entire month of August, I presided over the
worst security failure in U.S. history.
● I have set the all-time record for most people worldwide to
simultaneously protest me in public venues (15 million people), shattering
the record for protests against any person in the history
of mankind.
● I have cut health care benefits for war veterans and support a cut in
duty benefits for active duty troops and their families in wartime.
RESUME :GEORGE
W. BUSH
2004 Elections
Africa
Afghanistan
Caribbean
Corporate Scandals
Indonesia
AND
East Timor
Guantanamo
Haiti
IAO's 9-11
Investigation
What is going on, I'm sorry to say, is a
belief that the public doesn't need to know -- limiting access, limiting
information to cover the backsides of those who are in charge of the
war. It's extremely dangerous and cannot and should not be accepted, and
I'm sorry to say that up to and including this moment of this interview,
that overwhelmingly it has been accepted by the American people. And the
current Administration revels in that, they relish and take refuge in
that.
Media
The big
media themes about the 2004 presidential campaign have reveled in vague
rhetoric and flimsy controversies. But little attention has focused on a
matter of profound importance: Whoever wins the race for the White House
will be in a position to slant the direction of the U.S. Supreme Court for
decades to come.
Missing: A Media Focus on the Supreme Court
By Norman Solomon
Southeast Asia
Landmines
According
to the CBO [Congressional Budget office] study, the wealthiest 1 percent
of all taxpayers -whose earnings average $1.2 million - are receiving an
average tax cut of $78,420 this year. Meanwhile, the middle 20 percent of
taxpayers - whose earnings average $51,000 - are getting only a $1,090
cut. Those in the bottom 20% - averaging earnings of $16,620 - get just a
$250 cut. The result: "President Bush's tax cuts have shifted federal tax
payments from the richest Americans to a wide swath of middle-class
families."
The Daily Mislead
Working Conditions
War on Terror &
Civil Liberties
 Iraq
German filmmaker Fritz Kippler, one of Goebbels' most effective
propagandists, once said that two steps were necessary to promote a Big
Lie so the majority of the people in a nation would believe it. The first
was to reduce an issue to a simple black-and-white choice that "even the
most feebleminded could understand." The second was to repeat the
oversimplification over and over. If these two steps were followed, people
would always come to believe the Big Lie.
In Kippler's day, the best example of his application of the
principle was his 1940 movie "Campaign in Poland," which argued that the
Polish people were suffering under tyranny - a tyranny that would someday
threaten Germany - and that the German people could either allow this
cancer to fester, or preemptively "liberate" Poland. Hitler took the
"strong and decisive" path, the movie suggested, to liberate Poland, even
though after the invasion little evidence was found that Poland
represented any threat whatsoever to the powerful German Reich. The movie
was Hitler's way of saying that invading Poland was the right thing to do,
and that, in retrospect, he would have done it again.
Hitler, after all, claimed to have based everything he did on the
virtuous goal of uniting Europe - and then the world - in a thousand-year
era of peace, foreshadowed in the Bible. If you believe that a thousand
years of peace is such a noble end that any means is justified to reach
it, it's a short leap to eugenics, preemptive wars, torture of dissidents
and prisoners, and mass murder.
Believing that the end justifies the means is the ultimate slippery
slope. It will ultimately kill any noble goal, because even if the goal is
achieved, it will have been corrupted along the way by the means used to
accomplish it.
What Would
Machiavelli Do? The Big Lie Lives On
By Thom Hartmann
US Deaths
in Iraq
Iraqi Deaths in Iraq
To Whom it May Concern,
Sgt. Campbell requested
that, if something happened to him, his family place this photo on
his coffin. |
I found out that my
brother, Sergeant Ryan M. Campbell, was dead during a graduate seminar
at Emory University on April 29, 2004. Immediately after a uniformed
officer knocked at my mother's door to deliver the message that broke
her heart, she called me on my cell phone. She could say nothing but
"He's gone." I could say nothing but "No." Over and over again we
chanted this refrain to each other over the phone as I made my way
across the country to hold her as she wept.
I had made the very same trip in February, cutting classes to spend
my brother's two weeks' leave from Baghdad with him. Little did I know
then that the next time I saw him would be at Arlington National
Cemetery. During those days in February, my brother shared with me his
fear, his disillusionment, and his anger. "We had all been led to
believe that Iraq posed a serious threat to America as well as its
surrounding nations," he said. "We invaded expecting to find weapons of
mass destruction and a much more prepared and well-trained Republican
Guard waiting for us. It is now a year later, and alas, no weapons of
mass destruction or any other real threat, for that matter."
Ryan was scheduled to complete his one-year assignment to Iraq on
April 25. But on April 11, he emailed me to let me know not to expect
him in Atlanta for a May visit, because his tour of duty had been
involuntarily extended. "Just do me one big favor, ok?" he wrote. "Don't
vote for Bush. No. Just don't do it. I would not be happy with you."
Last night, I listened to George W. Bush's live, televised speech
at the Republican National Convention. He spoke to me and my family when
he announced, "I have met with parents and wives and husbands who have
received a folded flag, and said a final goodbye to a soldier they
loved. I am awed that so many have used those meetings to say that I am
in their prayers and to offer encouragement to me. Where does strength
like that come from? How can people so burdened with sorrow also feel
such pride? It is because they know their loved one was last seen doing
good. Because they know that liberty was precious to the one they lost.
And in those military families, I have seen the character of a great
nation: decent, and idealistic, and strong."
This is my reply: Mr. President, I know that you probably still
"don't do body counts," so you may not know that almost one thousand
U.S. troops have died doing what you told them they had to do to protect
America. Ryan was Number 832. Liberty was, indeed, precious to the one I
lost-- so precious that he would rather have gone to prison than back to
Iraq in February. Like you, I don't know where the strength for "such
pride" on the part of people "so burdened with sorrow" comes from; maybe
I spent it all holding my mother as she wept. I last saw my loved one at
the Kansas City airport, staring after me as I walked away. I could see
April 29 written on his sad, sand-chapped and sunburned face. I could
see that he desperately wanted to believe that if he died, it would be
while "doing good," as you put it. He wanted us to be able to be proud
of him. Mr. President, you gave me and my mother a folded flag instead
of the beautiful boy who called us "Moms" and "Brookster." But worse
than that, you sold my little brother a bill of goods. Not only did you
cheat him of a long meaningful life, but you cheated him of a meaningful
death. You are in my prayers, Mr. President, because I think that you
need them more than anyone on the face of the planet. But you will never
get my vote.
So to whom it may concern: Don't vote
for Bush. No. Just don't do it. I would not be happy with you.
Sincerely, Brooke M. Campbell
American Casualties
We
didn't hear about the lives of Spec. Justin Onwordi or Pfc. Harry
Shondee Jr. at the Democratic convention.
And I doubt we'll hear much about their deaths when the
Republicans gather in New York this month.
Onwordi, 28, a Nigerian immigrant, and Shondee, a 19-year-old
Navajo, were on duty with the 1st Cavalry Division in Iraq when, early
last week, they gave their lives for their country.
The Pentagon did not have much to say about their deaths. In a
terse news release of some 100 words, the government announced that
the two Arizonans had been killed "when an improvised explosive device
detonated near the vehicle they were traveling in."
The attack took place in Baghdad on Monday. Onwordi died that
day. Shondee fought for life, then succumbed Tuesday. Their deaths
came with news that four other American soldiers were also killed in
Iraq in the same 24-hour cycle.
Sgt. Juan Calderon, a Texan with the 1st Marine Division, was
killed with an as-yet-unidentified comrade in fighting near Fallujah.
Army Sgt. Tommy Gray of New Mexico died in a motor pool accident.
Capt. Gregory Ratzlaff, a Marine from Oregon, died from a "nonhostile"
gunshot wound.
Six dead in 24 hours. A few weeks back - before the "transfer of
power" in Iraq - it might have been a front page headline. But The New
York Times ran the news at the bottom of Page 8; The Washington Post
on Page 15. Here at The Denver Post, we put the story on Page 16. The
TV news networks mentioned the deaths parenthetically.
The political parties are no more forthcoming; each has
determined that it is not in its interest to talk about the dead and
wounded in Iraq.
I don't understand. We pulled Ambassador Paul Bremer out and
replaced him with Ambassador John Negroponte. Why should that make our
guys and gals, and their deaths and wounds, invisible?
The dying and maiming has gone on unabated since we transferred
authority in June. In terms understood by dozens of grieving American
families, July ranks fourth in the number of soldiers killed (54) and
fifth in the number wounded (404) since President Bush declared an end
to major combat operations in May 2003.
All told, we've now lost more than 920 uniformed Americans and
dozens of U.S. contractors, some of whom fought for us like
mercenaries and kept the official body count down. Now August has
gotten off to a bloody start.
And for Iraqis, it has been more of the same, with hundreds dying
at the hands of assassins and suicide bombers in recent weeks. The
estimated number of insurgents has jumped from 5,000 to 20,000, while
production of crude oil and electric power linger at or below prewar
levels.
Maybe we'll go on a binge of regret when the number of American
deaths hits 1,000. In the meantime, I hope the Onwordi and Shondee
families know that we value their loss and are trying to ensure their
loss is worthwhile.
I have resisted comparisons of Iraq and Vietnam. But in the way
we are obliviously adding names to some future Iraq memorial wall, I'm
having flashbacks to those terrible years when we put our faith in
Richard Nixon's secret plan to "Vietnamize" the war and paid dearly,
and in vain, for the ever-elusive "peace with honor."
It was a scary, surreal time, marked by anger, despair, protest
and backlash. Something dies in a society when it fights a war on the
cheap, without a universal call for sacrifice, putting off the
reckoning for having run up tens of billions of dollars of debt and
ignoring the incessant toll in lives.
The obituaries tell us a little bit more about Justin Onwordi and
Harry Shondee.
Shondee lived on the Navajo reservation. He was a member of the
National Honor Society at Ganado High School and a good golfer.
Onwordi, who came here from Nigeria, leaves behind a wife,
Monique, and a new son, Jonathan, who was born July 7.
Onwordi had been home on leave for the birth. He at least got to
hold a son who now will never know him.
Deaths Mounting, As Is Indifference
By John Aloysius Farrell Denver Post
|
Letterman's Top Ten Bush Tax Proposals read by John Kerry:
#10. No estate tax for families with at
least two U.S. Presidents.
#9. W-2 form is now Dubya-2 forms.
#8. Under simplified tax code, your refund check goes directly to
Halliburton.
#7. Reduced earned income tax credit is so unfair, it makes me want to
tear out my lustrous, finely groomed hair.
#6. Attorney General Ashcroft gets to write off U.S. Constitution
#5. Texas Rangers can take business loss for trading Sammy Sosa.
#4. Eliminate all income taxes; just ask Teresa to cover the whole damn
thing
#3. Cheney can claim Bush as a dependent
#2. Hundred-dollar penalty if you pronounce it “nuclear” instead of “nucular.”
#1. Bush gets deduction for mortgaging our entire future.
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MICHAEL MOORE/O'REILLY SHOWDOWN AT CONVENTION
Tue Jul 27 2004 16:51:50 ET
FOX NEWS is planning to air a redhot interview between Bill O'Reilly and
boxoffice sensation Michael Moore on Tuesday.
The DRUDGE REPORT has obtained an embargoed transcript of the session:
Moore: That’s fair, we’ll just stick to the issues
O’Reilly: The issues… alright good, now, one of the issues is you because
you’ve been calling Bush a liar on weapons of mass destruction, the senate
intelligence committee, Lord Butler’s investigation in Britain, and now the
911 Commission have all come out and said there was no lying on the part of
President Bush. Plus, Gladimir Putin has said his intelligence told Bush
there were weapons of mass destruction. Wanna apologize to the president
now or later?
M: He didn’t tell the truth, he said there were weapons of mass destruction.
O: Yeah, but he didn’t lie, he was misinformed by - all of those
investigations come to the same conclusion, that’s not a lie.
M: uh huh, so in other words if I told you right now that nothing was going
on down here on the stage…
O: That would be a lie because we could see that wasn’t the truth
M: Well, I’d have to turn around to see it, and then I would realize, oh,
Bill, I just told you something that wasn’t true… actually it’s president
Bush that needs to apologize to the nation for telling an entire country
that there were weapons of mass destruction, that they had evidence of this,
and that there was some sort of connection between Saddam Hussein and
September 11th, and he used that as a –
O: Ok, He never said that, but back to the other thing, if you, if Michael
Moore is president –
M: I thought you said you saw the movie, I show all that in the movie
O: Which may happen if Hollywood, yeah, OK, fine –
M: But that was your question –
O: Just the issues. You’ve got three separate investigations plus the
president of Russia all saying… British intelligence, US intelligence,
Russian intelligence, told the president there were weapons of mass
destruction, you say, “he lied.” This is not a lie if you believe it to be
true, now he may have made a mistake, which is obvious –
M: Well, that’s almost pathological – I mean, many criminals believe what
they say is true, they could pass a lie detector test –
O: Alright, now you’re dancing around a question –
M: No I’m not, there’s no dancing
O: He didn’t lie
M: He said something that wasn’t true
O: Based upon bad information given to him by legitimate sources
M: Now you know that they went to the CIA, Cheney went to the CIA, they
wanted that information, they wouldn’t listen to anybody
O: They wouldn’t go by Russian intelligence and Blair’s intelligence too
M: His own people told him, I mean he went to Richard Clarke the day after
September 11th and said “What you got on Iraq?” and Richard Clarke’s going
“Oh well this wasn’t Iraq that did this sir, this was Al Qaeda.”
O: You’re diverting the issue…did you read Woodward’s book?
M: No, I haven’t read his book.
O: Woodward’s a good reporter, right? Good guy, you know who he is right?
M: I know who he is.
O: Ok, he says in his book George Tenet looked the president in the eye,
like how I am looking you in the eye right now and said “President, weapons
of mass destruction are a quote, end quote, “slam dunk” if you’re the
president, you ignore all that?
M: Yeah, I would say that the CIA had done a pretty poor job.
O: I agree. The lieutenant was fired.
M: Yeah, but not before they took us to war based on his intelligence. This
is a man who ran the CIA, a CIA that was so poorly organized and run that it
wouldn’t communicate with the FBI before September 11th and as a result in
part we didn’t have a very good intelligence system set up before September
11th
O: Nobody disputes that
M: Ok, so he screws up September 11th. Why would you then listen to him, he
says this is a “slam dunk” and your going to go to war.
O: You’ve got MI-6 and Russian intelligence because they’re all saying the
same thing that’s why. You’re not going to apologize to Bush, you are going
to continue to call him a liar.
M: Oh, he lied to the nation, Bill, I can’t think of a worse thing to do for
a president to lie to a country to take them to war, I mean, I don’t know a
worse –
O: It wasn’t a lie
M: He did not tell the truth, what do you call that?
O: I call that bad information, acting on bad information – not a lie
M: A seven year old can get away with that –
O: Alright, your turn to ask me a question—
M: ‘Mom and Dad it was just bad information’—
O: I’m not going to get you to admit it wasn’t a lie, go ahead
M: It was a lie, and now, which leads us to my question
O: OK
M: Over 900 of our brave soldiers are dead. What do you say to their
parents?
O: What do I say to their parents? I say what every patriotic American
would say. We are proud of your sons and daughters. They answered the call
that their country gave them. We respect them and we feel terrible that
they were killed.
M: And, but what were they killed for?
O: They were removing a brutal dictator who himself killed hundreds of
thousands of people
M: Um, but that was not the reason that was given to them to go to war, to
remove a brutal dictator
O: Well we’re back to the weapons of mass destruction
M: But that was the reason
O: The weapons of mass destruction
M: That we were told we were under some sort of imminent threat
O: That’s right
M: And there was no threat, was there?
O: It was a mistake
M: Oh, just a mistake, and that’s what you tell all the parents with a
deceased child, “We’re sorry.” I don’t think that is good enough.
O: I don’t think its good enough either for those parents
M: So we agree on that
O: but that is the historical nature of what happened
M: Bill, if I made a mistake and I said something or did something as a
result of my mistake but it resulted in the death of your child, how would
you feel towards me?
O: It depends on whether the mistake was unintentional
M: No, not intentional, it was a mistake
O: Then if it was an unintentional mistake I cannot hold you morally
responsible for that
M: Really, I’m driving down the road and I hit your child and your child is
dead
O: If it were unintentional and you weren’t impaired or anything like that
M: So that’s all it is, if it was alcohol, even though it was a mistake –
how would you feel towards me
O: Ok, now we are wandering
M: No, but my point is –
O: I saw what your point is and I answered your question
M: But why? What did they die for?
O: They died to remove a brutal dictator who had killed hundreds of
thousands of people –
M: No, that was not the reason –
O: That’s what they died for
M: -they were given –
O: The weapons of mass destruction was a mistake
M: Well there were 30 other brutal dictators in this world –
O: Alright, I’ve got anther question—
M: Would you sacrifice—just finish on this. Would you sacrifice your child
to remove one of the other 30 brutal dictators on this planet?
O: Depends what the circumstances were.
M: You would sacrifice your child?
O: I would sacrifice myself—I’m not talking for any children—to remove the
Taliban. Would you?
M: Uh huh.
O: Would you? That’s my next question. Would you sacrifice yourself to
remove the Taliban?
M: I would be willing to sacrifice my life to track down the people that
killed 3,000 people on our soil.
O: Al Qeada was given refuge by the Taliban.
M: But we didn’t go after them—did we?
O: We removed the Taliban and killed three quarters of Al Qeada.
M: That’s why the Taliban are still killing our soldiers there.
O: OK, well look you cant kill everybody. You wouldn’t have invaded
Afghanistan—you wouldn’t have invaded Afghanistan, would you?
M: No, I would have gone after the man that killed 3,000 people.
O: How?
M: As Richard Clarke says, our special forces were prohibited for two months
from going to the area that we believed Osama was—
O: Why was that?
M: That’s my question.
O: Because Pakistan didn’t want its territory of sovereignty violated.
M: Not his was in Afghanistan, on the border, we didn’t go there. He got a
two month head start.
O: Alright, you would not have removed the Taliban. You would not have
removed that government?
M: No, unless it is a threat to us.
O: Any government? Hitler, in Germany, not a threat to us the beginning but
over there executing people all day long—you would have let him go?
M: That’s not true. Hitler with Japan, attacked the United States.
O: Before—from 33-until 41 he wasn’t an imminent threat to the United
States.
M: There’s a lot of things we should have done.
O: You wouldn’t have removed him.
M: I wouldn’t have even allowed him to come to power.
O: That was a preemption from Michael Moore—you would have invaded.
M: If we’d done our job, you want to get into to talking about what happened
before WWI, woah, I’m trying to stop this war right now.
O: I know you are but—
M: Are you against that? Stopping this war?
O: No we cannot leave Iraq right now, we have to—
M: So you would sacrifice your child to secure Fallujah? I want to hear you
say that.
O: I would sacrifice myself—
M: Your child—Its Bush sending the children there.
O: I would sacrifice myself.
M: You and I don’t go to war, because we’re too old—
O: Because if we back down, there will be more deaths and you know it.
M: Say ‘I Bill O’Reilly would sacrifice my child to secure Fallujah’
O: I’m not going to say what you say, you’re a, that’s ridiculous
M: You don’t believe that. Why should Bush sacrifice the children of people
across America for this?
O: Look it’s a worldwide terrorism—I know that escapes you—
M: Wait a minute, terrorism? Iraq?
O: Yes. There are terrorist in Iraq.
M: Oh really? So Iraq now is responsible for the terrorism here?
O: Iraq aided terrorist—don’t you know anything about any of that?
M: So you’re saying Iraq is responsible for what?
O: I’m saying that Saddam Hussein aided all day long.
M: You’re not going to get me to defend Saddam Hussein.
O: I’m not? You’re his biggest defender in the media.
M: Now come on.
O: Look, if you were running he would still be sitting there.
M: How do you know that?
O: If you were running the country, he’d still be sitting there.
M: How do you know that?
O: You wouldn’t have removed him.
M: Look let me tell you something in the 1990s look at all the brutal
dictators that were removed. Things were done, you take any of a number of
countries whether its Eastern Europe, the people rose up. South Africa the
whole world boycotted---
O: When Reagan was building up the arms, you were against that.
M: And the dictators were gone. Building up the arms did not cause the fall
of Eastern Europe.
O: Of course it did, it bankrupted the Soviet Union and then it collapsed.
M: The people rose up.
O: why? Because they went bankrupt.
M: the same way we did in our country, the way we had our revolution. People
rose up—
O: Alright alright.
M:--that’s how you, let me ask you this question.
O: One more.
M: How do you deliver democracy to a country? You don’t do it down the
barrel of a gun. That’s not how you deliver it.
O: You give the people some kind of self-determination, which they never
would have had under Saddam—
M: Why didn’t they rise up?
O: Because they couldn’t, it was a Gestapo-led place where they got their
heads cut off—
M: well that’s true in many countries throughout the world__
O: It is, it’s a shame—
M:--and you know what people have done, they’ve risen up. You can do it in
a number of ways . You can do it our way through a violent revolution, which
we won, the French did it that way. You can do it by boycotting South
Africa, they overthrew the dictator there. There’s many ways—
O: I’m glad we’ve had this discussion because it just shows you that I see
the world my way, you see the world your way, alright—and the audience is
watching us here and they can decide who is right and who is wrong and
that’s the fair way to do it. Right?
M: Right, I would not sacrifice my child to secure Fallujah and you would?
O: I would sacrifice myself.
M: You wouldn’t send another child, another parents child to Fallujah, would
you? You would sacrifice your life to secure Fallujah?
O: I would.
M: Can we sign him up? Can we sign him up right now?
O: That’s right.
M: Where’s the recruiter?
O: You’d love to get rid of me.
M: No I don’t want—I want you to live. I want you to live.
O: I appreciate that. Michael Moore everybody. There he is…
END
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