Senator Byrd...The Truth Will Emerge.

by searchfothetruth 63 Replies latest members adult

searchfothetruth

'The Truth Will Emerge...' 5-23-3








"Truth, crushed to earth, shall rise again, - -
The eternal years of God are hers;
But Error, wounded, writhes in pain,
And dies among his worshippers."

Truth has a way of asserting itself despite all attempts to obscure it. Distortion only serves to derail it for a time. No matter to what lengths we humans may go to obfuscate facts or delude our fellows, truth has a way of squeezing out through the cracks, eventually.

But the danger is that at some point it may no longer matter. The danger is that damage is done before the truth is widely realized. The reality is that, sometimes, it is easier to ignore uncomfortable facts and go along with whatever distortion is currently in vogue. We see a lot of this today in politics. I see a lot of it -- more than I would ever have believed -- right on this Senate Floor.

Regarding the situation in Iraq, it appears to this Senator that the American people may have been lured into accepting the unprovoked invasion of a sovereign nation, in violation of long-standing International law, under false premises. There is ample evidence that the horrific events of September 11 have been carefully manipulated to switch public focus from Osama Bin Laden and Al Queda who masterminded the September 11th attacks, to Saddam Hussein who did not. The run up to our invasion of Iraq featured the President and members of his cabinet invoking every frightening image they could conjure, from mushroom clouds, to buried caches of germ warfare, to drones poised to deliver germ laden death in our major cities. We were treated to a heavy dose of overstatement concerning Saddam Hussein's direct threat to our freedoms. The tactic was guaranteed to provoke a sure reaction from a nation still suffering from a combination of post traumatic stress and justifiable anger after the attacks of 911. It was the exploitation of fear. It was a placebo for the anger.

Since the war's end, every subsequent revelation which has seemed to refute the previous dire claims of the Bush Administration has been brushed aside. Instead of addressing the contradictory evidence, the White House deftly changes the subject. No weapons of mass destruction have yet turned up, but we are told that they will in time. Perhaps they yet will. But, our costly and destructive bunker busting attack on Iraq seems to have proven, in the main, precisely the opposite of what we were told was the urgent reason to go in. It seems also to have, for the present, verified the assertions of Hans Blix and the inspection team he led, which President Bush and company so derided. As Blix always said, a lot of time will be needed to find such weapons, if they do, indeed, exist. Meanwhile Bin Laden is still on the loose and Saddam Hussein has come up missing.

The Administration assured the U.S. public and the world, over and over again, that an attack was necessary to protect our people and the world from terrorism. It assiduously worked to alarm the public and blur the faces of Saddam Hussein and Osama Bin Laden until they virtually became one.

What has become painfully clear in the aftermath of war is that Iraq was no immediate threat to the U.S. Ravaged by years of sanctions, Iraq did not even lift an airplane against us. Iraq's threatening death-dealing fleet of unmanned drones about which we heard so much morphed into one prototype made of plywood and string. Their missiles proved to be outdated and of limited range. Their army was quickly overwhelmed by our technology and our well trained troops.

Presently our loyal military personnel continue their mission of diligently searching for WMD. They have so far turned up only fertilizer, vacuum cleaners, conventional weapons, and the occasional buried swimming pool. They are misused on such a mission and they continue to be at grave risk. But, the Bush team's extensive hype of WMD in Iraq as justification for a preemptive invasion has become more than embarrassing. It has raised serious questions about prevarication and the reckless use of power. Were our troops needlessly put at risk? Were countless Iraqi civilians killed and maimed when war was not really necessary? Was the American public deliberately misled? Was the world?

What makes me cringe even more is the continued claim that we are "liberators." The facts don't seem to support the label we have so euphemistically attached to ourselves. True, we have unseated a brutal, despicable despot, but "liberation" implies the follow up of freedom, self-determination and a better life for the common people. In fact, if the situation in Iraq is the result of "liberation," we may have set the cause of freedom back 200 years.

Despite our high-blown claims of a better life for the Iraqi people, water is scarce, and often foul, electricity is a sometime thing, food is in short supply, hospitals are stacked with the wounded and maimed, historic treasures of the region and of the Iraqi people have been looted, and nuclear material may have been disseminated to heaven knows where, while U.S. troops, on orders, looked on and guarded the oil supply.

Meanwhile, lucrative contracts to rebuild Iraq's infrastructure and refurbish its oil industry are awarded to Administration cronies, without benefit of competitive bidding, and the U.S. steadfastly resists offers of U.N. assistance to participate. Is there any wonder that the real motives of the U.S. government are the subject of worldwide speculation and mistrust?

And in what may be the most damaging development, the U.S. appears to be pushing off Iraq's clamor for self-government. Jay Garner has been summarily replaced, and it is becoming all too clear that the smiling face of the U.S. as liberator is quickly assuming the scowl of an occupier. The image of the boot on the throat has replaced the beckoning hand of freedom. Chaos and rioting only exacerbate that image, as U.S. soldiers try to sustain order in a land ravaged by poverty and disease. "Regime change" in Iraq has so far meant anarchy, curbed only by an occupying military force and a U.S. administrative presence that is evasive about if and when it intends to depart.

Democracy and Freedom cannot be force fed at the point of an occupier's gun. To think otherwise is folly. One has to stop and ponder. How could we have been so impossibly naive? How could we expect to easily plant a clone of U.S. culture, values, and government in a country so riven with religious, territorial, and tribal rivalries, so suspicious of U.S. motives, and so at odds with the galloping materialism which drives the western-style economies?

As so many warned this Administration before it launched its misguided war on Iraq, there is evidence that our crack down in Iraq is likely to convince 1,000 new Bin Ladens to plan other horrors of the type we have seen in the past several days. Instead of damaging the terrorists, we have given them new fuel for their fury. We did not complete our mission in Afghanistan because we were so eager to attack Iraq. Now it appears that Al Queda is back with a vengeance. We have returned to orange alert in the U.S., and we may well have destabilized the Mideast region, a region we have never fully understood. We have alienated friends around the globe with our dissembling and our haughty insistence on punishing former friends who may not see things quite our way.

The path of diplomacy and reason have gone out the window to be replaced by force, unilateralism, and punishment for transgressions. I read most recently with amazement our harsh castigation of Turkey, our longtime friend and strategic ally. It is astonishing that our government is berating the new Turkish government for conducting its affairs in accordance with its own Constitution and its democratic institutions.

Indeed, we may have sparked a new international arms race as countries move ahead to develop WMD as a last ditch attempt to ward off a possible preemptive strike from a newly belligerent U.S. which claims the right to hit where it wants. In fact, there is little to constrain this President. Congress, in what will go down in history as its most unfortunate act, handed away its power to declare war for the foreseeable future and empowered this President to wage war at will.

As if that were not bad enough, members of Congress are reluctant to ask questions which are begging to be asked. How long will we occupy Iraq? We have already heard disputes on the numbers of troops which will be needed to retain order. What is the truth? How costly will the occupation and rebuilding be? No one has given a straight answer. How will we afford this long-term massive commitment, fight terrorism at home, address a serious crisis in domestic healthcare, afford behemoth military spending and give away billions in tax cuts amidst a deficit which has climbed to over $340 billion for this year alone? If the President's tax cut passes it will be $400 billion. We cower in the shadows while false statements proliferate. We accept soft answers and shaky explanations because to demand the truth is hard, or unpopular, or may be politically costly.

But, I contend that, through it all, the people know. The American people unfortunately are used to political shading, spin, and the usual chicanery they hear from public officials. They patiently tolerate it up to a point. But there is a line. It may seem to be drawn in invisible ink for a time, but eventually it will appear in dark colors, tinged with anger. When it comes to shedding American blood - - when it comes to wreaking havoc on civilians, on innocent men, women, and children, callous dissembling is not acceptable. Nothing is worth that kind of lie - - not oil, not revenge, not reelection, not somebody's grand pipedream of a democratic domino theory.

And mark my words, the calculated intimidation which we see so often of late by the "powers that be" will only keep the loyal opposition quiet for just so long. Because eventually, like it always does, the truth will emerge. And when it does, this house of cards, built of deceit, will fall.

http://commondreams.org/views03/0521-10.htm

Realist

great letter!
with this bush admin. the US is only a inch away from a dictatorship.
searchfothetruth

If an American Senator is saying these things then we can't all be looneys can we.?
I wonder how long Senator Byrd will be allowed to speak like this before he too suffers a fatal plane crash...just a thought.
freeman

Searthforthetruth:
Without getting into the politics of what senator Byrd said, I would like to point something out that you are likely unaware of. This particular chap is, well, how should I put it nicely, a bit of a nut-job and not exactly well respected here in the States. He is best known for his hours-long meandering diatribes that at times embarrasses even his most ardent supporters.
Members of his own political party have been know to refer to him as “sheets” behind his back. He got that nickname some years back because that was the attire he dressed in when he was a full-fledged member of the infamous Klu Klux Klan. Again not wanting to get into the substance of what this man said (as that is irrelevant to me anyway), I just wanted you to be aware of these facts, as you may not necessarily want to point to him as a good example of someone sharing your own political viewpoint.
Regards
Freeman
Realist

A Robert Byrd in Hand Is Worth Two Bushes Going Like 90 Against the War James Ridgeway | Mondo Washington The Village Voice Wednesday 14 May 2003
Robert Byrd is more than just a lone voice in Congress speaking out against the war. He is one of a number of people in Washington who have had enough.
And Bush will be hard put to get the 85-year-old Byrd. The senator has nothing to lose. Not only has he been in the Senate for decades (since 1958), but as a head of the Appropriations Committee for years, he's at the heart of the legislative process. More to the point, he has been an ally of Republican business interests through his longtime defense of the West Virginia coal industry. Byrd has led the fight against pollution controls that would hurt coal sales.
Byrd began as a supporter of then majority leader Lyndon Johnson, and during the 1960s won plaudits for successfully plotting to overthrow Teddy Kennedy as whip. Kennedy at the time was immersed in the Chappaquiddick affair.
Always taking care of business, Byrd has brought home to West Virginia such plums as FBI and IRS offices, as well as a Fish and Wildlife training camp. He tried but lost a drive to settle the CIA in West Virginia. The senator has been pushing a huge highway corridor from the Virginia border deep into the central part of his state.
From his post as ranking minority member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, Byrd is fighting White House efforts to privatize, on a piecemeal basis, functions of government, such as the coast guard. Privatizing removes congressional control over jobs and adds to the conservatives' campaign to reduce Congress's influence.
Byrd is not exactly the sort of figure that has come to typify politicians in latter-day Washington. He doesn't go to parties, and he's formal almost to the point of caricature. He carries a copy of the U.S. Constitution around with him.
Peter King, the Long Island conservative Republican, made a feeble attempt to launch a campaign against Byrd by resurrecting the senator's long-ago ties to the Ku Klux Klan. On MSNBC, King declared, "Let me tell you, as a Republican, I almost welcome [Byrd's attack on Bush]. This is handing us an issue, because the Democrats make themselves look so small and petty. And if they're going to rely on someone like Senator Byrd as their spokesman, a man who, years ago, with his racist background gave up any right to be a moral arbiter of anything, then bring it on."
Others in Congress have questioned the war in the mildest of terms, but Byrd has spoken plainly from the beginning, saying at one point, "I truly must question the judgment of any president who can say that a massive unprovoked military attack on a nation which is over 50 percent children is 'in the highest moral traditions of our country.' "
And Byrd has kept on speaking out. After watching Bush's Top Gun act last week, the elderly senator delivered this scathing assessment of the president's landing on the aircraft carrier: "As I watched the president's speech, before the great banner proclaiming 'Mission Accomplished,' I could not help but be reminded of the tobacco barns of my youth, which served as country road advertising backdrops for the slogans of chewing-tobacco purveyors. I am loath to think of an aircraft carrier being used as an advertising backdrop for a presidential political slogan, and yet that is what I saw."
Tom Gavin, a spokesman in Byrd's office, said calls were running heavy and about even. Gavin said he doubts Bush would try to hurt Byrd because "President Bush relied on West Virginia to carry him through the last election."
© Copyright 2003 by TruthOut.org
teenyuck

YAWN....Where is Sword of Jah?
ThiChi

Who cares what an Ex KKK member thinks! High Wizard Byrd's predications were wrong about the Iraq war, and he continues to be wrong.
Search, I am suprised you would rely on an ex KKK member for your views...given your human rights/war crimes agenda.....
Yerusalyim

Robert KKK Byrd is an IDIOT!
As far as the US being close to a Dictatorship with Bush, SHOW THE PROOF. Roosevelts was the Imperial presidency, not Bush's
ThiChi

Byrd's record:
The ex-Klansman showed his true colors when asked by Fox News Sunday morning talk show host Tony Snow about the state of race relations in America. Sen. Byrd warned: "There are white niggers. I've seen a lot of white niggers in my time. I'm going to use that word. We just need to work together to make our country a better country, and I'd just as soon quit talking about it so much."
The ex-Klansman's admirers praise his historical knowledge, mastery of procedural rules, and outspokenness. They refer to the Senate's senior Democrat as the "conscience of the Senate." They downplay his white-sheet-wearing days as a "brief mistake" - as if joining the Klan were like knocking over a glass of water. Oopsy.
This ex-Klansman wasn't just a passive member of the nation's most notorious hate group. According to news accounts and biographical information, Sen. Byrd was a "Kleagle" - an official recruiter who signed up members for $10 a head. He said he joined because it "offered excitement" and because the Klan was an "effective force" in "promoting traditional American values."
The ex-Klansman allegedly ended his ties with the group in 1943. He may have stopped paying dues, but he continued to pay homage to the KKK. Republicans in West Virginia discovered a letter Sen. Byrd had written to the Imperial Wizard of the KKK three years after he says he abandoned the group. He wrote: "The Klan is needed today as never before and I am anxious to see its rebirth here in West Virginia" and "in every state in the Union."
The ex-Klansman later filibustered the landmark 1964 Civil Rights Act - supported by a majority of those "mean-spirited" Republicans - for more than 14 hours. He also opposed the nominations of the Supreme Court's two black justices, liberal Thurgood Marshall and conservative Clarence Thomas. In fact, the ex-Klansman had the gall to accuse Justice Thomas of "injecting racism" into the Senate hearings.
The ex-Klansman vowed never to fight "with a Negro by my side. Rather I should die a thousand times, and see Old Glory trampled in the dirt never to rise again, than to see this beloved land of ours become degraded by race mongrels, a throwback to the blackest specimen from the wilds."
Mulan

Here we go again................

Senator Byrd...The Truth Will Emerge.

Share this