CSPAN2 11pm The Secret Way to War:The DSM & the Iraq War's Buried History

[Viva_La_Revolution]

The Secret Way to War: The Downing Street Memo and the Iraq War's Buried History
Mark Danner

In "The Secret Way to War" author Mark Danner argues that President Bush decided to invade Iraq much earlier than he has admitted. The author calls on a transcription of the secret minutes of a July 2002 meeting of senior British foreign policy and security officials, referred to as the Downing street memo, to prove that the Bush administration only agreed to weapons inspections in the expectation that the Iraqis would refuse to cooperate. This event was hosted by the Mechanics Institute Library in San Francisco.

Mark Danner is the author of "The Massacre at El Mozote: A Parable of the Cold War," "The Road to Illegitimacy: One Reporter's Travels Through the 2000 Florida Recount" and "Torture and Truth: America, Abu Ghraib, and the War on Terror."

[Viva_La_Revolution]

1. "A Song at the End of the World" by Czeslaw Milosz

A Song at the End of the World

by Czeslaw Milosz

On the day the world ends
A bee circles a clover,
A fisherman mends a glimmering net.
Happy porpoises jump in the sea,
By the rainspout young sparrows are playing
And the snake is gold-skinned as it should always be.

On the day the world ends
Women walk through the fields under their umbrellas,
A drunkard grows sleepy at the edge of a lawn,
Vegetable peddlers shout in the street
And a yellow-sailed boat comes nearer the island,
The voice of a violin lasts in the air
And leads into a starry night.

And those who expected lightning and thunder
Are disappointed.
And those who expected signs and archangels' trumps
Do not believe it is happening now.
As long as the sun and the moon are above,
As long as the bumblebee visits a rose,
As long as rosy infants are born
No one believes it is happening now.

Only a white-haired old man, who would be a prophet
Yet is not a prophet, for he's much too busy,
Repeats while he binds his tomatoes:
No other end of the world will there be,
No other end of the world will there be.

(Translated by Anthony Milosz)

[blm]

2. The majority of Dems not signing onto a DSM investigation in 2005 was the

BIGGEST failure of the last two years.

What would it have cost them to say let's hold this up for closer examination - there was no way it could have hurt, and this entire nation could have gained so much in knowledge and perspective.

[w8liftinglady]

5. you are SO right.

[w8liftinglady]

3. Sometimes,I wonder why I watch these things-i get so angry

[Viva_La_Revolution]

4. "We've been losing in Iraq since we invaded Baghdad and

let the city be looted"

[w8liftinglady]

6. the first tragedy when war comes is the truth. how true.

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7. Hiram and that quote...

In 1918 US Senator Hiram Warren Johnson is purported to have said: The first casualty when war comes is truth. However, this was not recorded. In 1928 Arthur Ponsonby's wrote: The 'When war is declared, truth is the first casualty'. (Falsehood in Wartime) Samuel Johnson seems to have had the first word: 'Among the calamities of war may be jointly numbered the diminution of the love of truth, by the falsehoods which interest dictates and credulity encourages.' (from The Idler, 1758)

[w8liftinglady]

8. talking about DSM

[w8liftinglady]

9. "fixed" has a different meaning in British English vs. A merican english..

-spin around DSM

[Viva_La_Revolution]

10. has a different meaning to my cat, too

:rofl:

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11. "The Iraq war is the best present the US could have given bin Laden"