Monday, December 09, 2019
Pelosi knew…and kept quiet…and Americans and Iraqis died
The most significant political development today was not, as you may think, the release of the Inspector General’s report on the FBI investigation into Trump campaign ties to Russia, although that will dominate the news. Nor was it even a blockbuster story in today’s Washington Post in which they reveal the Afghanistan equivalent of the Pentagon Papers, showing that generals and politicians have been systematically lying to the public about the progress of that war since practically the day it started. Significant, sure, but hardly surprising.
No, the most significant development today came in a question from a student at Johns Hopkins University to Pelosi at a CNN Town Hall. The question was about impeachment, but in answering it, Pelosi reveals that, as the ranking member of the Intelligence Committee, she heard all the information about “WMD in Iraq” that was kept secret from us. And what she says is that she (and by extension, the other members of the “inner circle” of Congress who got the same briefings) *knew* that George Bush was lying about WMD in Iraq. She and the others knew, and did nothing, and kept their mouths shut while millions of us were in the streets trying to stop that war. They kept their mouths shut while establishment media gushed over Colin Powell’s lying performance at the U.N. Keeping their position in the “establishment” by keeping quiet about what they knew was more important to them than the lives of American soldiers, 4424 of whom would die and tens of thousands more be seriously injured in a war they could have stopped just by telling the truth. Definitely more important to them than the lives of Iraqis, hundreds of thousands and probably more than a million of whom would die and are still dying as a direct result of that illegal invasion.
And that significant development? I doubt very much you’re going to hear about it on the news tonight or read about it tomorrow. Except right here.