Popular Resistance welcomes LUV News readers!
Jack Balkwill, the driving force behind LUV News for the past 17 years, has been a mentor to us. He was the creator of the term “FOG” which stands for “Forces of Greed” which we began using so often that we named our radio program “Clearing the FOG.”
Jack writes that the mission of LUV News has been to provide the people with “a media which is not controlled by transnational corporations that do not have their interests in mind, for the purpose of promoting real democracy.” He believes that news should not be filtered through a pro-corporate lens. You can read more about the beliefs of LUV News’ editors here. These are principles which we share at Popular Resistance where we believe an independent media is central to creating the kind of transformation that is needed.
Now Jack is folding LUV News into Popular Resistance so that he and Jodda Mitchell, also an editor at LUV News, can focus on other things. Jack and Jodda will become contributors to Popular Resistance to share their wisdom through us by sending commentary and articles to publish on Popular Resistance. We hope that Popular Resistance readers will appreciate their perspective. Below is Jack’s first contribution.
Note: Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi said this weekend of the intelligence for invading Iraq, “Knowing what we knew then, this intelligence did not support the threat.” At the time of the invasion Pelosi served as Ranking Member of the House Intelligence Committee and had access to the secrets justifying the invasion. What makes this perplexing is that Pelosi now supports Hillary Clinton’s presidential run.
Clinton says she was misled about the intelligence when she voted to support the invasion. Were they reading the same information, and if not, do Democrats talk to each other? Does anything disqualify a candidate able to attract hundreds of millions of dollars from banksters, polluters and defense cheats? – Jack Balkwill
Pelosi: Iraq invasion ‘was wrong then’
By Mark Hensch in The Hill
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said on Sunday that U.S. intelligence at the time did not justify the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
“It was wrong then and the intelligence wasn’t there,” Pelosi told former Rep. Patrick Murphy (D-Pa.), the host of MSNBC’s “Taking the Hill.”
“Knowing what we knew then, this intelligence did not support the threat,” said Pelosi, who served as the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee at the time.
Pelosi also criticized former President George W. Bush for overstating the threat posed by the regime of Saddam Hussein.
“It was a gross misrepresentation to the American people of the capabilities and intentions of the Iraqi government,” she said of claims that Hussein sought weapons of mass destruction (WMDs).
“We have to address the record on that,” she added.
The invasion’s validity has become an issue on the 2016 presidential campaign trail.
Former Gov. Jeb Bush (R-Fla.) first raised eyebrows in an interview aired on May 11 when he said he would have repeated his older brother’s decision, given what is known now.
“I would have [authorized the invasion], and so would have Hillary Clinton, just to remind everyone,” Jeb Bush told Fox News host Megyn Kelly on “The Kelly File.”
“And so would almost everybody that was confronted with the intelligence they got,” Jeb Bush, a possible 2016 GOP presidential candidate, added.
He then reversed course on May 14 following public backlash for his support of the unpopular conflict.
“I would not have engaged, I would not have gone into Iraq,” he said during an event in Arizona.
Clinton, a Democratic presidential candidate, also said during a talk with reporters on May 19 that she had changed her mind on the invasion.
“I’ve made it very clear that I made a mistake, plain and simple, and I’ve written about it in my book,” she said of voting to authorize the invasion in 2002 while a New York senator.
Picking a stance on the conflict has also divided some of the GOP’s official presidential candidates.
Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), for example, said on May 17 that the second Bush administration had acted appropriately given the circumstances in 2003.
“It was not a mistake for the president to go into Iraq based on the information he was provided as president,” Rubio told host Chris Wallace on “Fox News Sunday.”
In contrast, retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson disagreed with that assessment on May 20.
“I’ve said definitely that I was never in favor of going into Iraq,” he told The Hill in a phone interview.
“And since we did go in, the big problem is that we didn’t secure victory there, and that’s a huge problem,” he added.
