Dear Sir or Madam: Get Active!

Byron Williams at WorkingForChange provides the following letter on Iraq and the Downing Street Memo, which can be sent to your elected representative regardless of whether you were for or against the war in the first place:

Dear (Senator or Representative):

I am writing to express my concern about my country's actions in the war on terror. Originally, I (supported/did not support) the war in Iraq, but as more and more information is leaked, I fear that we are moving away from the democratic traditions that I hold dear.

There's the administration's dismay over Newsweek's retraction of its May 9 Guantanamo Bay story citing a military report on abuse, including flushing a copy of the Quran down a toilet in an attempt to make detainees talk. Now newly released FBI documents support Newsweek's story.

According to the latest report, several detainees at Guantanamo Bay told FBI interrogators that guards had mishandled copies of the Quran, including one who said in 2002 that guards flushed a Quran in the toilet.

How can the administration show such outrage at Newsweek's reporting when its very own Justice Department acknowledges reports of similar abuse?

The time lag between our government's awareness of the possible infractions and the disclosure of the recent report suggests it may be more than a few bad apples that made the unilateral decision which led to the withholding of this evidence from the American people.

Myriad reports on torture come from the ACLU, Human Rights Watch, Red Cross and Amnesty International.

I do not wish to suggest the FBI report alone has the final word, but does this not warrant an independent investigation?

The other matter I wish to bring to your attention is the secret memo dated July 23, 2002, first published in the May 1 edition of the London Sunday Times. I read the memo in its entirety by simply doing a Google search using the words "secret memo."

I thought it best that I quote the following passage in full: (Please note that Richard Dearlove, the head of MI6 -- CIA equivalent -- is the one referred to as C.)

C reported on his recent talks in Washington. There was a perceptible shift in attitude. Military action was now seen as inevitable. 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. The NSC had no patience with going the U.N. route, and no enthusiasm for publishing material on the Iraqi regimes record. There was little discussion in Washington of the aftermath of military action.

More troubling, still, is that the aforementioned memo precedes the ominous statement by then-National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice:

"The problem here is that there will always be some uncertainty about how quickly he (Saddam) can acquire nuclear weapons. But we don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud."

Without weapons of mass destruction, the only smoking gun I am aware of is the secret memo, which the media have done a poor job of reporting.

As Americans, we can agree or disagree about the war as it currently stands, but the items that I draw to your attention in no way serve the interest of our great nation.

Inaction by Congress would suggest that even within democratic societies, Machiavelli is ultimately correct: The ends do indeed justify the means.

As long as we hide our collective heads in the sand by doing nothing, despite the evidence, we place a higher premium on politics, thus moving us away from our democratic traditions.

I am not interested in your response with watchwords, shibboleths or the latest focus group-approved slogans.

I pray that you will have the courage to break from the herd and think for yourself and your country during these most difficult days.

Sincerely,

One who loves her/his country authentically

P.S. You did take an oath to uphold the U.S. Constitution.

Send this letter to your elected representative, and then send a few more copies to newspapers, friends and family!