An Ember of Hope
By SEAN HANNON
June 3, 2005
"Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy."
These are not the words of radical leftwing conspiracy theorists. These are the words of a foreign policy advisor who reported to Prime Minister Tony Blair in July of 2002, in the so-called “Downing Street memo”. They were preceded by the words “C reported on his recent talks in Washington. There was a perceptable shift in attitude. Military action was now seen as inevitable.” They were shortly followed by the statement that “There was little discussion in Washington of the aftermath after military action.” They are powerful words that the Amercian mainstream press refuses to investigate or inquire about.
Worse than not investigating, the Washington Post, once a courageous journal that stood up to power, instead did a smear piece on the Conyers hearings over this memo and its implications. The columnist derided the democrats as “playing house” and belittled all efforts to treat this important issue seriously.
I am heartened to see, when I do a Google search on the subject, that letters like mine are popping up around the country, and people are waking up to a hard reality. The “Downing Street memo” glows like a faint ember of hope beneath the strangling thicket of lies that covers this land. It has the power to set off a firestorm intense enough to re-ignite the torch of lady liberty. But only if we as individuals have the courage to keep the ember alive. In an era where the news media is largely an infotainment business, and investigative journalism is a faint memory, our fight for maintaining the core of truth in our democracy depends as never before on everyday people speaking up, brave whistleblowers putting their jobs and reputation on the line, and government insiders leaking information (that baser men would seek to suppress) in true service to the country that we love.
