Dick Durbin, Mike Gravel and Sibel Edmonds: When Silence is treason

Tuesday, May 08, 2007

Presidential candidate Mike Gravel gave Scott Horton a terrific interview today. I recommend you listen to the whole thing.

Gravel mentions Dick Durbin's recent statement that, because he was on the Senate Intelligence Committee, he knew that the egadministration was telling WMD lies prior to the Iraq invasion, but that Durbin couldn't say anything. Gravel says that's a lie - and that he, Gravel, is living proof. In 1971, Gravel read out the Pentagon Papers on the Senate floor, entering them into the Congressional Record, and later won a court case, proving that he was right, and within his rights, to do that.

I've been meaning to bring up the Durbin brouhaha in the context of Sibel Edmonds case (of course). Downstairs, I'll tell you why it's relevant (and also a heads up about some other Sibel-related stuff coming down the pike later in the week)

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In case you missed it, late last month, Senator Dick Durbin dropped this 'bombshell' on the Senate floor (C&L has the video, courtesy of Olbermann):

""A few hundred feet away from here, in a closed room, carefully guarded, the Intelligence Committee was meeting on a daily basis for top secret breifings about the information we were receiving and the information we had in the Intelligence Committee was not the same information being given to the American people.

I couldn't believe it. Members of this administration were in active, heated debate over whether aluminum tubes really meant the Iraqis were developing nuclear weapons. Some within the administration saying of course not, it's not the same kind of aluminum tube, at the same time that members of the administration were telling the American people to be fearful of mushroom shaped clouds.

I was angry about it. Frankly, I couldn't do much about it. Because you see in the Intelligence Committee we were sworn to secrecy. We can't walk outside the door and say, "The statement made yesterday by the White House is in direct contradiction to classified information that's being given to this Congress." We can't do that. We couldn't make those statements.

And so, in my frustration, I sat here on the floor of the Senate and listened to this heated debate about invading Iraq, thinking the American people are being misled, they are not being told the truth. And that's why I joined 22 of my colleagues in voting no. I didn't feel at the time that the American people knew the real facts.

So what happened? We invaded, turned loose hundreds, if not thousands of people scouring Iraq for these weapons of mass destruction, never found one of them. Looked for nuclear weapons, no evidence whatsoever."

Of course, that means that everyone in the committee knew that the American public was being lied to - and nobody said anything, until now.

It turns out, apparently, that Durbin was either lying or mistaken when he said that he "couldn't do much about it."

In the interview that Presidential candidate Mike Gravel gave to Scott Horton yesterday, Gravel explained that "any member of Congress can release all kinds of stuff if they want to, in conscience, that they think the people should know." Gravel knows of which he speaks, in 1971, he put the Pentagon Papers into the Congressional record, and was vindicated in a Supreme Court ruling.

Here's a partial transcript (mine) from the interview:

"Mike Gravel: (22 mins)Are you familiar with what happened with (Senator Dick Durbin), making the statement that he was conflicted because he could observe the fact that the President was saying one statement to the people and that the members of Congress were briefed on something else?

Scott Horton: Right - in the run up to the war... Durbin was on the Intelligence Committee and he knew that what they were telling us was lies.

MG: Right - now let's analyze that for a minute, and we'll see something very interesting. First off, Dick Durbin, making that statement, right now, in my mind is very courageous. Here's a guy, who has now got his conscience, and he's reacting to it, and made it public. What he's doing is destroying the argument of Hillary, by God, and Edwards - all of the people who voted for the war, at the same time when he knew there was a shell-game going on, and when Hillary or any of the others, say 'Well, if I knew then what I know now, I wouldn't have voted for it' - well, they knew *then* That's what Durbin's statement says - they knew then! But what Durbin did unfortunately not know was that the Supreme Court ruled in my case, Gravel vs US Government, about the Pentagon Papers, that a member of Congress cannot be held responsible for the secrecy of the administration. And so, any member of Congress can release all kinds of stuff if they want to, in conscience, that they think the people should know!

SH: So Durbin's excuse that he would have gone to prison if he'd told us is null?

MG: Just the opposite! And of course, he said this statement, he said: "I thought that if I released this secret information, that people would die." Well, by not releasing it, people have died. And he was not at risk for anything that he might have revealed. And none of them would be, because the operative law is what the Supreme Court ruled in my case. The problem is there's nobody, nobody has dared to do anything about this since I was in office. And even after the courtcase, I released stuff - (inaudible) and other things.

It's just very sad, the level of timdity, and the lack of conscience. I say 'lack of conscience' because this is exactly what we had during the Vietnam era - people detached themselves from the loss of life. They don't appreciate the fact that... you know, when Murtha came out and was saying 'these people are dying, this is not right' - this was quite a change of heart for him, because he's been one of the major forces in Congress supporting the military-industrial-complex which brought about the Iraq war. So, it's the timidity, it's the lack of getting your moral sights up until you realize what you are doing with the power that you have, as a Senator. So, the game-playing is on, and that's what I'm trying to cut through. I'll be able to cut through it Scott, I'll tell you, if after my press conference, next Monday, the peace groups get organized, and make a showing at the press conference, and then turn around and make this the cause, I'll have the details all lined out, what the leadership is supposed to do. I'll tell you what, they'll respond!"

(As I say, go check out the rest of the interview, lots of great sensible-sounding stuff there, including his plan to end the war (by taking specific action steps in Congress), and details about his upcoming press conference (Monday) etc.)

Which brings me to Sibel Edmonds. Again.

Sibel has told her story (that Richard Perle, Douglas Feith, Marc Grossman and Eric Edelman are involved in treasonous activity) to the Senate Intelligence Committee and the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Some day - soon if we can get Henry Waxman to hold hearings - not only will we learn everything she knows, we'll also have to consider that many people knew all the details all along, and did... nothing! They stood by, knowing what they knew, while Richard Perle was Chairman of the Defense Policy Board. They stood by, knowing what they knew, while Doug Feith was running the Office of Special Plans, leading us into war.

It's enough to make me angry.

And to be clear, at the time, Sibel's claims weren't just 'allegations' - they'd already been investigated and proven. As Sibel said recently:

"This has been going on for five years, and it's not a case (that needs) to be investigated, that part has already been done by the Senate Judiciary Committee, by the DoJ's Inspector Generals office, so it just have to have a hearing and just put an end to it and see some oversight and accountability as a result. "

In other Sibel news, as you know, we've been demanding that Waxman hold hearings into her case - hearings that he promised would occur when Dems were in the majority. Details are available at Let Sibel Edmonds Speak. At some point later this week, we will have some new content being released, and when that gets published, we'll start with the phones again - calling Waxman's office demanding hearings. We'll need your help.

(let me know if you want to be added to an email list for announcements)

(DU, DKOS - please go kick, rec, if you think that's appropriate)

Durbin's Casual Admission: Of Course the War is a Fraud

Sunday April 29th 2007, 9:33 am

Corporate Media Ignores Durbin’s Admission Iraq Invasion was Predicated on Lies

Majority Whip Richard Durbin, number two Democrat in Congress, “knew that the American public was being misled into the Iraq war but remained silent because he was sworn to secrecy as a member of the intelligence committee,” according to the Washington Times. “The information we had in the intelligence committee was not the same information being given to the American people. I couldn’t believe it,” the Congress critter admitted. “I was angry about it. [But] frankly, I couldn’t do much about it because, in the intelligence committee, we are sworn to secrecy. We can’t walk outside the door and say the statement made yesterday by the White House is in direct contradiction to classified information that is being given to this Congress.”

Sworn to secrecy and responsible for the murder of nearly a million Iraqis and three thousand, possibly ten thousand U.S. soldiers, thus making not only Mr. Durbin a war criminal but the whole of Congress. Senators John D. Rockefeller IV and Carl Levin, members of the same intelligence committee as Durbin, are at the head of the war criminal list, right after Bush, Cheney and the neocons, because these “two Democrats said publicly before the war that Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein was intent on pursuing nuclear weapons,” that it to say they had the same information as Durbin.

In a somewhat more equitable and just world, the lot of them would be doing the perp walk in orange jumpsuits. Unfortunately, we live in a world nowhere near equitable and just, a world where men of Durbin’s caliber make statements indicating he knew, and obviously a lot of other Congress critters knew, the neocon invasion of Iraq was predicated on “intelligence failures,” i.e., absolute and calculated lies, and yet Durbin did not try to stop the murder of hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqis because he was “sworn to secrecy.”

Beyond the Washington Times, this news is apparently not worth the light of day, as a Google News search produces a mere handful of results, most notably Fox News, which gave it a predictable spin, namely that Congress digested and embraced the engineered neocon lies about Saddam and his illusory weapons of mass destruction and the fairy tale that Saddam held tea and biscuit parties for “al-Qaeda” in Baghdad. All of this was plainly obvious at the time, but the corporate media eagerly disseminated neocon fabrications to a mostly indifferent and distracted American public, a can’t be bothered public almost as complicit in war crimes as Durbin.

Meanwhile, a “left-leaning, activist crowd,” according to the Boston Herald, enthusiastically welcomed war criminal Hillary and would-be war criminal Obama in California. “Obama, who has made his early opposition to the Iraq conflict a central theme of his campaign, told delegates he was proud to have bucked popular opinion at the time. It was a subtle but direct jab at Clinton, who voted in 2002 to grant Bush authority to invade Iraq.”

Plan Obama, however, does not set a withdrawal date and in fact would keep troops in Iraq for “counter-terrorism,” that is to say they would continue killing Iraqis opposed to the occupation of their country. Of course, Iraq is not Iran or Pakistan, two countries Obama affirms may need to be on the receiving end of “surgical missile strikes,” even though such would “further strain relations between the U.S. and the Arab world,” as the Chicago Tribune reported back in September, 2004. Apparently, this is not a big deal for the “left-leaning, activist crowd,” so long as it is a Democrat doing the killing and not a Bush neocon.

But then, of course, Democrats, even “left-leaning” Democrats, are not opposed to mass murder campaigns, as they supported Bill Clinton’s criminal bombing of Yugoslavia. “Democrats prefer Clinton wars and Republicans prefer Bush wars. But in the end, they almost unanimously come together to support all wars. The differences concern the choice of official rationale,” writes Diana Johnstone.

And, in regard to Iran, this “official rationale” differs little from that of the neocons. Speaking before AIPAC last month, Obama “said global leaders must do whatever it takes to stop Iran from enriching uranium and acquiring nuclear weapons,” according to the Chicago Sun-Times, and never mind there is no evidence of this dreaded acquirement. “Our job is to renew the United States’ efforts to help Israel achieve peace with its neighbors while remaining vigilant against those who do share this vision,” Obama told AIPAC.

In addition, Obama the “antiwar candidate” told AIPAC the “consequence of the Administration’s failed strategy in Iraq has been to strengthen Iran’s strategic position; reduce U.S. credibility and influence in the region; and place Israel and other nations friendly to the United States in greater peril.” In order to right this perceived wrong—that is, a wrong perceived by AIPAC, not the American people—Obama issued a “gloves-are-off memo” stating the United States, if he is selected as ruler, “wouldn’t rule out force” because job one of the neolib elite is “to never forget that the threat of violence is real.”

Indeed, the “threat of violence is real,” and it will continue to be so long as Democrats and Republicans lord over the political process, as they will come 2008.

Olbermann: Truth little, truth late on Iraq

Truth little, truth late on Iraq

Sen. Durbin Drops Bombshells on the Senate Floor

And they call this oversight....
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By: SilentPatriot on Saturday, April 28th, 2007 at 1:18 PM - PDT

Senator Dick Durbin, who was on the Senate Intelligence Committee during the lead up to the war, fills us in on what was going on behind the intel scenes in 2002-2003 and how accurately it matched up with what we were being told publicly. Unfortunately for all of us, he was sworn to secrecy back then…

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Filed Under: Countdown/Keith Olbermann, Iraq, Liars, Intelligence Gathering, The Senate
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