crossposted and updated from February 23rd, 2007 diary on Securing America
http://securingamerica.com/...
Thanks to: Loquatrix and pollwatch for suggesting that I repost and revise my diary from 2/24 :http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/2/24/131031/046 and to Loquatrix for suggesting this title.
On February 22nd, 2007, my Tom DeLay crony Congressman, John Culberson hosted a Town Hall meeting at Rice University in Houston.
Remembering that several weeks before the Iraq War he had held a Town Hall meeting to talk up that war, I was expecting him to use this meeting to talk up Iran.
Instead it was the usual divide and conquer that he practices on an issue that is local in nature and yet which he has monopolized for political purposes to get votes...local rail and it's route.
He did however take questions on anything we wanted to talk about and I got the chance to challenge Mr. Culberson on his stand vis a vis Iran.
I prefaced my question on Iran by reminding him that during the Q&A for his Town Hall meeting in late 2002, I had pointed out that CIA Director George Tenet had said in congressional testimony that he didn't know whether or not Saddam Hussein had WMDs but believed that Iraq was well-contained and would not use any weapons he might have unless we invaded and then any available weapons would be used against our troops.
I reminded Culberson that Iraq was a strategic blunder of monumental proportions and asked if he would pledge to stand up to George W Bush on Iran because there are ships heading toward the Strait of Hormuz and we are in danger of another war.
Culberson at first said that we don't need another war. Then he bobbed and weaved saying that Ahmadinejad threatened us and we can't tolerate that. I reminded him that Wes Clark said that one person does not make a country and that Iran is a multi-cultural country. I pointed out that General Clark said that regional diplomacy was called for. He agreed with that.
I thanked him for his politeness and reminded him that 4 years ago when I stood up to challenge the wisdom of the looming Iraq War he had said "It doesn't matter what you say, we're going to war."
Mr. Culberson apologized for how he spoke 4 years ago.
Four years ago there was no record of Mr. Culberson's statements. This time there were at least two newspaper reporters and a video camera.
Culberson went on to state that President Bush listens to his generals. At this point I interrupted him to say that was disingenuous and that Bush fired the generals who disagreed with him, like Eric Shinseki. Someone pointed out that Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld fired the generals.
I didn't hope to persuade Culberson but to alert people in the crowd of 200 or so that the threat of war in Iran was real in case they were not aware of that.
And I did so to share with people Wes Clark's message that we must stop Bush before he attacks Iran: http://www.stopiranwar.com/ .
I hope people sign this petition and write letters to the editor and call their members of Congress and tell their friends and do whatever they are able to get the word out.
Many Wes Clark supporters have wondered why Wes Clark hasn't announced his intentions wrt 2008.
I think he's just trying to stop a war, a war that would be an even greater catastrophe than Iraq because it might threaten to ignite the whole Middle East in a bloody Shia vs Sunni 1300 year old struggle for supremacy.
Seymour Hersh recently covered Bush's intentions on Iran here:
http://www.newyorker.com/...
CarolNYC had a wonderful diary recently at Democratic Underground here:
http://www.democraticunderground.com...
Tonight, 2/27/07, Wes Clark will be interviewed by Amy Goodman at the NYC 92nd St Y when Clark discusses Wars, Past, Present and Future:
http://www.92y.org/...
And I expect that Wes Clark will be taking this opportunity to warn more people about the risks of another catastrophic military misuse of power while we still have time to stop it.
For those of us who are anxiously waiting for Wes Clark to announce his decision wrt 2008, please consider that Clark's leadership right now is needed to help stop the madness of a preemptive war on Iran. We should follow that lead as best we can. There are millions of innocent peoples' lives hanging in the balance. If we are successful at stopping Bush before he attacks Iran, there will be time to consider 2008. If we are not successful, there's no telling how our world will have changed.