These numbers require powell and wilkerson to come here and tell the truth to Brad once and for all !
If they don't may they roast in hell with ronald reagan and ollie north !
American Military Casualties in Iraq
Date
Total
In Combat
American Deaths
Since war began (3/19/03): 4488 3532
Since "Mission Accomplished" (5/1/03) (the list)
4347
3424
Since Handover (6/29/04): 3627 2899
Since Obama Inauguration (1/20/09): 257 128
Since Operation New Dawn: 68 39
American Wounded Official Estimated
Total Wounded: 33184 Over 100000
Page last updated 01/25/13 3:25 pm EDT

Mike @ 1:

If they don't may they roast in hell with ronald reagan and ollie north !

So...David's comments didn't mean all that much to ya, then?

Very thoughtfully done, David. While I certainly share the vitriol towards many in the Bush/Obusha administrations as well as their enablers like Sens. Reid and Feinstein, the fact is, we have no idea what kind of pressures are at work here. You know there's a hell of a lot Max Cleland wanted to voice about the 9-11 Commission and Al Gore clearly has plenty to say about '00, and Kerry about '04 --- but they can't/won't speak out, likely for good reason. So let's be happy for any little nuggets of truthish-ness and accountability we can get because until someone high up is willing to fall on their sword and open Pandora's Box, Wilkerson's as good as we're likely to get...

"--- but they can't/won't speak out, likely for good reason."

Putting aside the obviousness of your statement (we know they haven't spoken out, and therefore assume a reason), on what basis do you reach the conclusion their reasons are "good"?

David

Thoughtful and insightful comment. Wish it could go viral. I think you have hit on our problem as a collective society.

Thank you

Nicely done, David.

David,

You are often a voice of sanity and sister/brotherhood (sibling-hood??!!) on this blog. I'm very glad to see your most excellent comment shining out on Brad's main post.

I think it may just barely be possible to say, "who is he kidding" about Wilkerson, and at the same time to recognize and acknowledge those tremendous pressures he and Powell were under. I think I tried to do so with Powell a while back when saying that he lied, or at least must have strongly doubted the truth of what he was saying, but also that he may have been essentially a decent sort of guy in totally the wrong place at the wrong time.

I'm getting into armchair psychology here but a person in Powell's position may have to fool himself in order to get out there and proclaim a lie as reality.

I don't wish to let Wilkerson off the hook, but I don't wish to vilify him either. I'm willing to accept and admire his courage in revealing as much as he has.

BTW, what does Colin Powell say? I don't see where he has either admitted or denied that he lied.

In the end, though, I agree that whether or not Powell knowingly lied is not the main issue, nor is it productive to focus on that alone, in a way that alienates and divides.

I still cannot fathom why Wilkerson's whistleblowing has not been seized on by the major media. He's a senior Bush administration insider with a distinguished record saying he will testify that Dick Cheney and others intentionally deceived Colin Powell by suppressing the dissents on Curveball.

Is it me, or is this not bigger than anything mentioned in Hubris?

Wilkerson charged on PBS in 2006 the war was a "hoax" and that Powell was tricked.

But where has Powell been? Ray McGovern asked whether Powell was a dupe or a liar, or something in between, but consider this oft-missed clue:

In February 2011, while US media like NYT and CBS was reporting Curveball admitted he'd lied all along, Powell was questioned by The Guardian about his part. Colin, apparently pissed told them:

"It has been known for several years that the source called Curveball was totally unreliable...[t]he question should be put to the CIA and the DIA as to why this wasn't known before the false information was put into the NIE sent to Congress, the president's state of the union address and my 5 February presentation to the UN."

If that sounded like a call for an investigation, we never heard about it in US media. Powell then backed off in his May 2012 memoir "It Worked For Me", blaming Cheney and CIA for bad intel but still not calling for action of any kind.

Wilkerson, on the other hand has pointed to specific allegations - Cheney and Tenet intentionally not relaying the BND and Tyler Drumheller's dissents to Powell constitutes a crime, no? Also having CIA agents secretly reporting to Cheney is a violation of protocol.

Wilkerson has been saying in snippets for years that Cheney deceived Powell to get him (and thereby, the public) onboard. We are supposed to believe there was some accidental reason Powell was not told Curveball was lying and crazy.

Tenet has said he doesn't remember hearing the dissents, but Drumheller says he's lying. Joshka Fischer, former head of the BND wrote a book saying the same thing. The Washington Post tried to nail down Tenet in a June 2006 piece, but Tenet used the old "I can't recall".

If this is not important, if this is not news, then what good is airing Hubris? Isn't the whole point showing how the media lacked the courage to report on wrongdoing at the highest levels? So really, what's changed?

Just wanted to thank Brad for the honor of having my comment highlighted. And Jim, Molly, Devon, and Lora for the very kind words above.

Gus @8-- As far as I can tell, it seems that's sorta the nature of the process of working to change cultural consciousness. A lot of work. Not a lot of obvious home runs. Then sometimes after forever a shift occurs.

I agree with Eqbal Ahmad who said something to the effect that the sane response to the madness all around is to be cynical and optimistic at the same time. Cynical cuz things are so fucked. Optimistic cuz hope is a much better motivator than despair, these issues must be worked on, and you never know when the hundredth monkey might come a calling.

I just so totally withhold my endorsement of David L.'s perfectly-worded (too perfect?) call to 'reason' (for placebo gratification of self-righteousness as a substitute, where Justice 'established' corruptly fails to act).

Look, they broke the law. Evidence shows war crimes, even as simple as lying and whether intentional or duped (or willingly duped, as in pre-planning a 'plausible deniability' excuse) IS --- not for eloquent comments to 'decide' and settle, and RATHER to be established at trial. Criminal trial for war crimes violations of ratified Geneva Conventions and Human Rights Accords, treaty enough to be laws of the land.

And, by damn, Powell broke the law, Wilkerson broke the law, what they did was criminal, unlawful, illegal, enough to charge and indict and try, as guilty may be proven.

Otherwise, they are as innocent as they say through their smirks, and they are free of aspersions ... altho' they feel really really bad so many died for bad intelligence, not their job tho', yet they feel the pain of the poor casualties and fatalities and maimed and refugee families, bedraggled 'little people' victims everywhere near the largest oil deposits on the planet ... and hounding detectives and pursuing posses and investigative journalism might all shut up everafter naming criminal charges when none sticks on innocents.

Trials settle the guilt or innocence one way or the other. Nothing less than trial, in court, on the record, duly sworn, tried and judged. A blog comment paean to 'come, let us reason' is NOT the "establish Justice" of founding constitutional law.

In some effect just the opposite: The more that paid trolls cry 'peace, peace' and there is no peace ... the more that paid celebrity 'familiars' reassure their admirers 'there's nothing to see here, just Move On,' 'faggedabouddit' ... the more that Nixonian 'limited hang-outs' are mere attempts at paralegal plea-bargaining ... then the more it seems to be a federally-directed 'vast rightwing conspiracy' by Cass Sunstein --- Czar of all Information you get circulating --- Gatekeeping a cognitive-infiltration placate-&-mollify operation.

The named perps and accessories to mass murder must be called to trial. Even in so little a way as a Bishop Tutu-modeled public 'Truth and Reconciliation Commission' forum. Endeavor Justice to obtain Peace.

David L.'s comment endeavors dissuasion from the actionable, to obtain silence, I suppose, of the lambish lamentating (lamenting?) sheeple.
The voice is trustworthy that calls for criminal trial of indictable 'high crimes' suspects. Any voicing less (than invoking Justice) is itself suspect. complicit. collaborative. paid troll. uh, I mean, infiltrating pre-assigned cognition framing ....

If Powell/Wilkerson, Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld/Ashcroft et al., have nothing to hide, then why resist open criminal trial to clear their historic stain, redeem their conscience, slam dunk open-and-shut summary judgment for dismissal and release from public malediction?

I hardly care what case is made in the media; whether Wilkerson (or any) 'gets the word out' (right or wrong) telling who is innocent, who is/was 'reasonably fooled,' or who is guilty.
I care what case(s) is made and tried in Court.

Besides, charges might be brought against media personnel, going to trial. Hell no they are not going to (help) 'get the word out' ... of their own criminal complicity.

There is manifest incompetence, accidental manslaughter, mass murder --- separate matters, said and certain. Respectively forgiveness, retribution, or punishment is separately and distinctly applied --- not fungible by fancified flummoxing words, hands-waving over a keyboard. As if
'These are not the mass-murderer drones you are looking for.'

No immunity. No impunity. Neither for the Pope.

There must be a call to account. in public. to history. for Justice.

Until the Public does the right and Just thing, there are going to be more wrongs done in our own name defiling our own interest. Only court trials chasten temptations and deter corruptions.

-

Meremark,

Let's look at who also broke the law. How about GWB and Dick Cheney, for starters?

Do you reasonably believe that if Powell had stepped down, or even come out against the so-called evidence, that the Cheney machine wouldn't have totally destroyed Powell professionally (or perhaps personally) and come up with a dozen stooges that backed them up beyond a shadow of a doubt?

Remember that Clinton "broke the law" when he lied about Monica Lewinsky. That was the great hue and cry leading to his impeachment and near-derailment of his presidency at the expense of his not being able to properly run the country for months if not years --- he BROKE THE LAW!!!!!

Let's get our priorities straight about who broke the law and the consequences of their doing so.

Lora ,you are right, we have to look at the bigger picture here to see that the "perfect" can be allowed to be the enemy of the good.

Personally, I am grateful to Wilkerson for coming forward and unveiling some of the truth behind the grand deception of the Iraq War. Now we can move forward to prevent further deceptions.

Those who participate in Outrage Political Theater only need to look back at the Clinton years to see how personal misbehavior can be spun into a major crime when in fact it was a soap opera.

It reminds me of when politicians use Freddie and Fannie Mae to explain away the major causes of the financial crisis when in fact it was an excuse to water down the new regulations passed by Congress under the Dodd-Frank Act.

Perspective is everything.