Downing Street Memo

Half a million e-mails are hard to ignore, even if you’re sheltered inside the Beltway. The unwashed masses are gathering; they’re pissed; and they’re not going away. This Thursday, June 16th, Rep. John Conyers, Jr., Ranking Member of the House Judiciary Committee, will hold a hearing on the Downing Street Memo.

If you haven’t already done so, please click here to send the e-mail. The more e-mails that have been received by this Thursday, the better.

If you get all your news from the TV networks and daily newspapers, you’re probably thinking “hmmm, Downing Street? Isn’t that over on the other side of Third Avenue?” But, if you seek out “non-mainstream” news sources, then you’re probably familiar with the Downing Street Memo: the Smoking Gun. The cookie jar that George W. Bush has his hands caught in.

This is what you didn’t learn from the daily paper or the evening news: the Downing Street Memo is the minutes of a meeting in July 2002 between Bush and Tony Blair. This is the meeting where they planned the Iraqi invasion, and agreed to fix whatever “intelligence” was necessary to justify their plan.

In other words, Bush spent almost a year just going through the motions of trying to deal peacefully with Saddam Hussein, and letting the UN sanctions work if they possibly could. The mass hysteria about “Weapons of Mass Destruction,” the dire warnings about Hussein trying to buy uranium from Niger — all a hoax.

Fixing the intelligence to fit their planned invasion vs. “Weapons of Mass Destruction!” — we have a discrepancy here. Some questions need to be answered.

Should the President of the United States be held accountable for lying and manipulating us into a war which has killed nearly 1,700 American soldiers? Richard Nixon thought he was above the law — Wrong! During Nixon’s presidency there were some real journalists who actually investigated and reported the news. Today’s “liberal media” (wherever they may be hiding) are either too complacent or afraid to investigate anything.

Let the mainstream “media” (using the term loosely) lie there in a stupor, wallowing in Michael Jackson and the missing-girl-of-the-week. Thousands of online activists and bloggers are now doing the job that the “media” watchdog (more like a lapdog now) used to do.

The Thursday Hearing is expected to produce additional documents which will corroborate the minutes of the Downing Street Memo. After the hearing, Conyers and other members of Congress will hand-deliver a petition (with over half a million signatures) to the White House, demanding that President Bush answer questions regarding his secret plan for the Iraqi invasion.

Things are heating up. Uh oh, Karl Rove needs to divert public attention Now! Terror Alert! Code Orange! Gay Marriage! Come on, Karl, think of something quick!