Bush commutes Libby sentence

[eppie]

I agree with you totally. Not only was the Iraq war unnecessary and without a proper legal basis, the justification given for it was dishonest (the real issue that the Libby case points toward), the management of the post-war occupation of Iraq was criminally incompetent, the costs of all kinds for eveyone involved are enormous, and the security and stability of the middle-east and the world have been seriously harmed.

There is every reason to be very angry. I know I am.

My dutch government also makes quite a mess out of this. Our governments usually consist of several parties making a coalition (because we have many parties and never will one have a majority).
So when the Iraq war started there were CDA (christian democrats) VVD (liberals, but compared to the US they are economically rightwing and on certain poitn conservative) and LPF and/or D66, the first a populist party set up by Pim Fortyun the guy that got shotm the second a liberal party but more left than the VVD. I mention them both because we had a few governments that fell, and these parties were in teh 1st and 2nd, and are now by teh way decimated.

So teh govermnet with CDA as head, chose to go to war helping the US. The used the same lies not only to the public but also in the parlement to convince everybody we had to join...these argumentses were taken as facts and made it then of course impossible to vote no for the other parties. I'm sure that our minister president Balkenende just liek Bush and Blair, new the lies were lies...I mean, he is not stupid.

So before last elections a majority (virtual.....untill after the elections) wanted to have an official investigation on this matter...I mean Balkenende wasn't going to admit he lied to us.
But what happened than...the PvdA a moderately socialist party (usually one of the bigger ones) formed a coalition with the CDA and the CU (a more religious christian party, but apart from the christian conservatism are more leftish than the CDA)........when they discussed about forming the coalition however one of the deals teh CDA made is that there was not to be an investigation into going to war in Iraq.

So a majority of voters voted for parties that wanted an investigation, but because of smart deal making there is not going to be one (PvdA, although being for an investigation will vote no because of the deal that was made).


This is a perversion of democracy of course, and I hope the senate, the members of which are not bound to the coalition agreement made by their parties, will step up and decide a investigation is necesarry. But often the ties to their party, and the chance of a government falling will refrain them from doing so.