June 2005

It had some of the atmospheric sense of the hearings that Rep. Conyers held
on the Downing Street Memo. The only difference this time is that it was not being
held in a basement room of the Capital. It was being held in an actual chamber
of Congress. The hearing was however, only attended by members of Congress who
sit on the left side of the aisle.

On Monday, Democratic Congressmen conducted a hearing into the actual
contracts by Halliburton for the rebuilding of Iraq. This hearing did not get
any press, except for being showed on C-Span. The hearing asked questions
involving the actual work that Halliburton and it’s Subsidiary, KBR, has done in
Iraq. This was, as the conservatives would call it, another “mock” trial.
Testimony was given by some experts including, Allan Waller who is C.E.O. of
Lloyd Owen International and Gary Butters who is the chairman of the same company.

Lloyd Owen International is a company that was contracted by the Iraqi
Government to deliver fuel to the people of Iraq. They are a security and
operations firm with a U.S. office based out of Florida. During the testimony of
the two top officials of this company, they gave compelling statements of how
Halliburton has not worked on the actual restoration of the oil infrastructure
as pursuant to their contract with the United States. Mr. Butters said that to
date they have only seen one K.B.R. official at one of the sites used to restore
the oil infrastructure to Iraq. Lloyd Owen employees visit all these sites on a daily basis. K.B.R. was suppose to be repairing the
infrastructure and get it back in operation, however Lloyd Owen has had to
purchase their own equipment in order to get fuel to the Iraqi people.

Here we are on another Saturday evening in America. Some people are out
having Barbeques, while others maybe out for a night on the town. I myself am
sitting at home relaxing to some television and wondering what the Times of
London may have in store tomorrow.

It has become almost a weekly event that some new, secret British document
gets leaked to the Times showing more proof that we may not have needed a war in
Iraq at this time. The country we fought to leave because of a lying ruler now
has their own Deep Throat proving wrong doing in their government and also in
ours. If these documents lead to any investigation under our Republican run
Congress is something yet to be seen, but one thing is for certain – the media
has finally awoken.

We are seeing more and more coverage from the press on the Downing Street
Memos and questions are starting to be asked more about the validity of the
facts within them. Our administration has, what would seem to be, an guilt
ridden muzzle on it. Scott McClellan, whenever asked about the memos, always
responds with his predetermined answer of “this is an old matter that has
already been addressed numerous times”. Ironically he won’t readdress it as what
could be a hope to make reporters drop the questioning; he just goes back to
that old statement on a daily basis. This is something that reeks of guilt.

When President Bush originally took office in 2000, he said he wanted to
return accountability to our government. This was a continual campaign point of
his as he ran against former vice-President Al Gore. They were riding on the
coattails of that hideous scandal of Bill Clinton getting a blow job, and the
ride stopped on Pennsylvania Avenue.

First we heard of the hurt feelings of the Republican’s when Howard Dean
referred to them as being “pretty much a white Christian party”. Their feelings
egos got even more bruised as Dick Durbin said the following on the Senate
floor:

If I read this to you and did not tell you that it was an FBI agent
describing what Americans had done to prisoners in their control, you would most
certainly believe this must have happened by Nazis, Soviets in their gulags, or
some mad regime – Pol Pot or others – that had no concern for human beings.
Sadly, that is not the case. This was the action of Americans in the treatment
of their prisoners.

The Republican’s have been crying traitor, liberalist, communist and every
other politically decimating character you can think of. It has been the talk of
radio, television, newspapers and internet bloggers for the past couple weeks.

Last week the fires got hotter as Dick Cheney said that only Howard Dean’s
mother could lover him. It has now overflowed into this week with Republican
Representative Hostettler say’; “"Like a moth to a flame the Democrats can't
help themselves when it comes to denigrating and demonizing Christians" on the
house floor. Then comes Republican Represenative Wilson with his own attack; “is
just inconceivable and truly incorrigible that in the midst of the war, that the
Democratic leaders would be conducting guerrilla warfare on American troops...".
This is fuelling the media even more and keeping the story of the school yard
politician a float.

A tiring argument we hear on a daily basis from conservatives is that the
liberal left believes that Saddam should have been left in power to rape and
kill. The truth is that is a totally false assertion, and, in my opinion,
getting rather old.

The fact is that we question the timing of the war more than the reasoning
for it. We all admit that Saddam Huessein was a horrible dictator that raped,
killed and tortured his people. We also admit the fact that he has previously
attacked surrounding nations without provocation. As matter of fact, it was
while Bill Clinton was President of the United States that Congress passed
resolution 4655 which was called the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998. This was
passed by both floors and signed into law on October 31, 1998 by President
Clinton. The resolution passed the House by a vote of 360-38 and passed Senate
by unanimous consent. The fact lies in that both parties regarded Saddam as an
evil dictator that needed removed from power. This thereby negates the argument
from certain conservatives that the liberal right thought Saddam should remain
in power.

So why all the debate over the war in Iraq, both past and present? If we all
agree Saddam should be removed as Iraq’s tyrant leader how come Democrats and
now some Republicans want the troops out? The truth is our questioning has
always been behind the reasoning of going to war with Iraq at a time when we
were already engaged in another war on terrorism