Salt Lake City Rocky

[Guest guest]

Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson:

 

'We won't be quiet'

September 02,2006

 

Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson

 

Dear friends:

 

I delivered this address Wednesday afternoon on the

occasion of a visit by President Bush, Secretary Rice,

and Secretary Rumsfeld to Salt Lake City. Thank you

for all the work you are doing to stand up and speak

out against the disastrous policies of the Bush

administration and our Congress.

 

Best regards,

 

Mayor Rocky Anderson

Salt Lake City, Utah

 

A patriot is a person who loves his or her country.

Who among you loves your country so much that you have

come here today to raise your voice out of deep

concern for our nation--and for our world?

 

And who among you loves your country so much that you

insist that our nation's leaders tell us the truth?

 

Let's hear it: " Give us the truth! Give us the truth!

Give us the truth! "

 

 

 

Let no one deny we are patriots. We love our country,

we hold dear the values upon which our nation was

founded, and we are distressed at what our President,

his Administration, and our Congress are doing to, and

in the name of, our great nation.

 

Blind faith in bad leaders is not patriotism.

 

A patriot does not tell people who are intensely

concerned about their country to just sit down and be

quiet; to refrain from speaking out in the name of

politeness or for the sake of being a good host; to

show slavish, blind obedience and deference to a

dishonest, war-mongering, human-rights-violating

President.

 

That is not a patriot. Rather, that person is a

sycophant. That person is a member of a frightening

culture of obedience--a culture where falling in line

with authority is more important than choosing what is

right, even if it is not easy, safe, or popular. And,

I suspect, that person is afraid--afraid we are right,

afraid of the truth (even to the point of denying it),

afraid he or she has put in with an oppressive,

inhumane regime that does not respect the laws and

traditions of our country, and that history will rank

as the worst presidency our nation has ever had to

endure.

 

In response to those who believe we should blindly

support this disastrous President, his Administration,

and the complacent, complicit Congress, listen to the

words of Theodore Roosevelt, a great President and a

Republican, who said: The President is merely the most

important among a large number of public servants. He

should be supported or opposed exactly to the degree

which is warranted by his good conduct or bad conduct,

his efficiency or inefficiency in rendering loyal,

able, and disinterested service to the Nation as a

whole.

 

Therefore it is absolutely necessary that there should

be full liberty to tell the truth about his acts, and

this means that it is exactly necessary to blame him

when he does wrong as to praise him when he does

right. Any other attitude in an American citizen is

both base and servile. To announce that there must be

no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand

by the President, right or wrong, is not only

unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to

the American public. Nothing but the truth should be

spoken about him or any one else. But it is even more

important to tell the truth, pleasant or unpleasant,

about him than about any one else.

 

We are here today as truth-tellers.

 

And we are here to demand: " Give us the truth! Give us

the truth! Give us the truth! "

 

We are here today to insist that those who were

elected to be our leaders must tell us the truth.

 

We are here today to insist that our news media live

up to its sacred responsibility to ascertain and

report the truth--rather than acting like nothing more

than a bulletin board for the lies and propaganda of a

manipulative, dishonest federal government.

 

We have been getting just about everything but the

truth on matters of life and death...on matters upon

which our nation's reputation hinges...on matters that

directly relate to our nation's fundamental

values...and on matters relating to the survival of

our planet.

 

In the process, our nation has engaged in an

unnecessary war, based upon false justifications. More

than a hundred thousand people have been killed--and

many more have been seriously maimed, brain-damaged,

or rendered mentally ill.

 

Our nation's reputation throughout much of the world

has been destroyed. We have many more enemies bent on

our destruction than before our invasion of Iraq.

 

And the hatred toward us has grown to the point that

it will take many years, perhaps generations, to

overcome the loathing created by our invasion and

occupation of a Muslim country.

 

What incredible ineptitude and callousness for our

President to talk about a Crusade while lying to us to

make a case for the invasion and occupation of a

Muslim country!

 

Our children and later generations will pay the price

of the lies, the violence, the cruelty, the

incompetence, and the inhumanity of the Bush

Administration and the lackey Congress that has so

cowardly abrogated its responsibility and authority

under our checks-and-balances system of government.

 

We are here to say, " We will not stand for it any

more. No more lies. No more pre-emptive, illegal war,

based on false information. No more God-is-on-our-

side religious nonsense to justify this immoral,

illegal war. No more inhumanity. "

 

Let's raise our voices, and demand, " Give us the

truth! Give us the truth! Give us the truth! "

 

Let's consider some of the most monstrous lies--lies

that have led us, like a nation of sheep, to this

tragic war.

 

Following September 11, 2001, the world knew that

Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda were responsible for the

horrific attacks on our country. Our long-time allies

were sympathetic and supportive. But our President

transformed that support into international disdain

for the United States, choosing to illegally invade

and occupy Iraq, rather than focus on and capture the

perpetrators of the 9/11 attacks.

 

Why invade and occupy Iraq? Vice President Dick Cheney

and Condoleezza Rice represented to us, without

qualification, that there were strong ties between

Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda.

 

In September, 2002, President Bush made the incredible

claim that " You can't distinguish between Al Qaeda and

Saddam. "

 

President Bush represented to Congress, without any

factual basis whatsoever, that Iraq planned,

authorized, committed, or aided the 9/11 attacks.

 

Our President and Vice-President, along with an

unquestioning news media, repeatedly led our nation to

believe that there was a working relationship between

Al Qaeda and the Iraqi government, a relationship that

threatened the US.

 

Even last week, when I met with Thomas Bock, National

Commander of the American Legion, I asked him why we

are engaged in the war in Iraq. He said, " Why, of

course, because of the 9/11 attacks on our country. " I

asked, " What did Iraq have to do with those attacks? "

He looked puzzled, then said, " Well, the connection

between Al Qaeda and Iraq. "

 

I was shocked. Here is a man who has criticized us for

opposing the war in Iraq--and he is completely wrong

about the underlying facts used to justify this war.

 

Not only has there never been any evidence of any

involvement by Saddam Hussein or Iraq with the attacks

on 9/11, but there has never been any evidence of any

operational connection whatsoever between Saddam

Hussein and Al Qaeda.

 

Colin Powell finally conceded there is no " concrete

evidence about the connection. " " The chairman of the

monitoring group appointed by the United Nations

Security Council to track Al Qaeda " disclosed that

" his team had found no evidence linking Al Qaeda to

Saddam Hussein. " And the top investigator for our

European allies has said, 'If there were such links,

we would have found them. But we have found no serious

connections whatsoever.' "

 

President Bush himself finally admitted nine days ago

during a press conference that there was no connection

between the attacks on 9/11 and Iraq. It's terrific

that the President has now admitted what others have

known for so long--but where is the accountability for

the tragic war we were led into on the basis of his

earlier misrepresentations?

 

Besides the fictions of Saddam Hussein somehow being

linked to the 9/11 attacks and his supposed connection

with Al Qaeda, what was the principal justification

for forgoing additional weapons inspections, failing

to work with our allies toward a solution, refraining

from seeking additional resolutions from the United

Nations, and hurrying to war - a so-called

" pre-emptive " war--in which we would attack and occupy

a Muslim nation that posed no security risk to the

United States, and cause the deaths of many thousands

of innocent men, women, and children--and the deaths

and lifetime injuries to many thousands of our own

servicemen and servicewomen?

 

The principal claim was that Saddam Hussein had

weapons of mass destruction--biological and chemical

weapons--and was seeking to build up a nuclear weapons

capability. As we now know, there was nothing--no

evidence whatsoever--to support those claims.

President Bush represented to us--and to people around

the world--that one of the reasons we needed to make

war in Iraq - and to do it right away--was because

Saddam Hussein was seeking to build nuclear weapons.

His assertions about Saddam Hussein trying to purchase

nuclear materials from an African nation and about

Iraq seeking to obtain aluminum tubes for the

enrichment of uranium were challenged at the time by

our own intelligence agency and scientists, yet he

didn't tell us that!

 

Ten days before the invasion of Iraq, it was proven

that the documents upon which President Bush's claim

about Saddam Hussein trying to obtain uranium was

based were forgeries. However, President Bush did not

disclose that to the American people. By that failure,

he betrayed each of us, he betrayed our country, and

he betrayed the cause of world peace.

 

Neither did the vast majority of the news media

disclose the forgeries--until it was far too late. It

took our local newspapers here in Salt Lake City four

months--until after President Bush declared that major

combat in Iraq was over--to report the discovery that

the documents were forgeries--and, therefore, that

there was no basis for the false claims about Saddam

Hussein trying to build up a nuclear capability. By

its failure to promptly disclose the forgeries, the

news media betrayed us as well. Had the American

people known we were being lied to--had President Bush

informed us that the documents were forged and that he

had no other basis for his claim--had our nation's

media done its job, rather than slavishly repeating to

us the lies being fed to it by the Bush

Administration--our nation may well not have allowed

the commencement of this outrageous, illegal,

unjustified war.

 

To President Bush, to his Administration, to our

go-along Congress, and to our news media, we are here

today, demanding, " Give us the truth! Give us the

truth! Give us the truth! "

 

Then-National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice said

that high-strength aluminum tubes acquired by Iraq

were " only really suited for nuclear weapons

programs, " warning " we don't want the smoking gun to

be a mushroom cloud. " Undisclosed by President Bush or

Condoleezza Rice was the fact that top nuclear

scientists had informed the Administration that the

tubes were " too narrow, too heavy, too long " to be

useful in developing nuclear weapons and could be used

for other purposes. Dr. Mohamed El Baradei, director

general of the International Atomic Energy Agency,

agreed. So much for the phony claims of Saddam Hussein

building nuclear weapons--the primary claims

justifying the rush to war. What were we told about

chemical and biological weapons of mass destruction?

These claims were as baseless and fraudulent as the

claims about nuclear weapons.

 

President Bush told us in his January 2003 State of

the Union address that Hussein had the materials to

produce as much as 500 tons of sarin, mustard and VX

nerve agent. Then, in May of 2003, he made the

outlandish statement that, " We found the weapons of

mass destruction. We found biological laboratories. "

Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld told us, " We know

where the [WMDs] are. " Vice President Cheney and

then-Secretary of State Powell also joined in the

chorus of lies and misinformation about weapons of

mass destruction.

 

Of course, no stockpiles of biological or chemical

weapons were found. Bush Administration Weapons

Inspector David Kay noted that Iraq did not have an

ongoing chemical weapons program after 1991--a

conclusion remarkably similar to statements made by

Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice before the 9/11

attacks--and before they sacrificed the truth in the

service of promoting the Bush Administration's case

for war against Iraq.

 

On February 24, 2001, less than 7 months before 9/11,

Colin Powell said that Saddam Hussein " has not

developed any significant capability with respect to

weapons of mass destruction. He is unable to project

conventional power against his neighbors, " said Colin

Powell.

 

And in July 2001, two months before 9/11, Condoleezza

Rice said: " We are able to keep his arms from him. His

military forces have not been rebuilt. "

 

It is astounding how they changed their claims after

the President decided to make a case for the invasion

and occupation of Iraq! To think that we could be lied

to by so many members of the Bush Administration with

such impunity is frightening--chilling. Yet these

imperious, arrogant, dishonest people think we should

just fall in line with them and continue to take them

at their word.

 

The truth has been established. Iraq had nothing to do

with the 9/11 attacks on the United States. There is

no evidence of any operational ties between Iraq and

Al Qaeda. And there were no weapons of mass

destruction in Iraq. What a tragedy, leading to

greater tragedy. We are fed lie after lie, our media

reinforces those lies, and we are a nation led to a

tragic, illegal, unprovoked war.

 

We are here because of our values. We love our

country. We cherish the freedoms and liberties of our

country. We don't call those who speak out against our

nation's leaders unpatriotic or un-American or

appeasers of fascists.

 

We have good, wholesome family values. In our

families, we teach honesty, we teach kindness and

compassion toward others, we teach that violence, if

ever justified, must be an absolutely last resort. In

our families, we teach that our nation's

constitutional values are to be upheld, and that they

are worth standing up and fighting for. Our family

values promote respect and equal rights toward

everyone, regardless of race, ethnic origin, and

sexual orientation. In our families, we teach the

value of hard work and competence--and we are left to

wonder about a President who, after receiving an

intelligence memo about the threat posed by Al Qaeda,

decides to continue his month-long vacation--just

before the 9/11 attacks on our country.

 

As we demand the truth from others, let us also face

the truth. Our government all too often has not cared

about the human rights of people in other nations--and

it doesn't really care about democracy, unless it

leads to the election of those who will do our

bidding. Consider the irony regarding the claims that

Saddam had chemical weapons and, because of that, we

needed to rush to war in Iraq. When Saddam Hussein was

using chemical weapons--first against Iranians, then

against his own people, the Kurds - our country

provided him with biological and chemical agents and

equipment to make the weapons. Presidents Reagan and

George H.W. Bush refused even to support economic

sanctions against Hussein for his use of weapons of

mass destruction. What did our nation do in response

to Hussein's use of chemical weapons, killing tens of

thousand of people, when he actually had them?

 

We befriended, coddled, and rewarded him--with

government-guaranteed loans totaling $5 billion since

1983, freeing up currency for Hussein to modernize his

military assets.

 

Perhaps those in the US government who aided and

abetted Saddam Hussein to further US business

interests, while he was gassing the Kurds, should be

sharing his courtroom dock as he is being tried now

for crimes against humanity. No more lies, no more

hiding of the truth, no more wars that more than

triple the value of stock in Dick Cheney's prior

employer, Halliburton--and which, as of last

September, has increased the value of the Halliburton

CEO's stock by $78 million.

 

We are patriots. We're deeply concerned. And we demand

change, now. No more lies from Condoleezza Rice about

whether she and President Bush were advised before

9/11 of the possibility of planes being flown into

buildings by terrorists.

 

No more gross incompetence in the office of the

Secretary of Defense.

 

No more torture of human beings.

 

No more disregard of the basic human rights enshrined

in the Geneva Convention.

 

No more kidnapping of people and sending them off to

secret prisons in nations where we can expect they

will be tortured.

 

No more unconstitutional wiretapping of Americans.

 

No more proposed amendments to the United States

Constitution that would, for the first time, limit

fundamental rights and liberties for entire classes of

people simply on the basis of sexual orientation.

 

No more federal land giveaways to developers.

 

No more increases in mercury emissions from old,

dirty, dangerous coalburning power plants.

 

No more backroom deals that deprive protection for

millions of acres of wild lands.

 

No more attacks on immigrants who work so hard to

build better lives.

 

No more inaction by Congress on fixing our

hypocritical and inconsistent immigration laws and

policies.

 

No more reliance on fiction rather than the science of

global warming.

 

No more manipulation of our media with false

propaganda.

 

No more disastrous cuts in funding for those most in

need.

 

No more federal cuts in community policing and local

law enforcement grant programs for our cities.

 

No more inaction on stopping the genocide in the

Darfur region of Sudan.

 

No more of the Patriot Act.

 

No more killing.

 

No more pre-emptive wars.

 

No more contempt for our long-time allies around the

world.

 

No more dependence on foreign oil.

 

No more failure to impose increased fuel efficiency

standards for automobiles.

 

No more energy policies developed in secret meetings

between Dick Cheney and his energy company cronies.

 

No more excuses for failing to aggressively cut global

warming pollutant emissions.

 

No more tragically incompetent federal responses to

natural disasters.

 

No more tax cuts for the wealthiest, while the middle

class and those who are economically-disadvantaged

continue to struggle more and more each year.

 

No more reckless spending and massive tax cuts,

resulting in historic deficits and historic

accumulated national debt.

 

No more purchasing of elections by the wealthiest

corporations and individuals in the country.

 

No more phony, ineffective, inhumane so-called war on

drugs. No more failure to pass an increase in the

minimum wage.

 

No more silence by the American people.

 

This is a new day. We will not be silent. We will

continue to raise our voices. We will bring others

with us. We will grow and grow, regardless of

political party--unified in our insistence upon the

truth, upon peace-making, upon more humane treatment

of our brothers and sisters around the world.

 

We will be ever cognizant of our moral responsibility

to speak up in the face of wrongdoing, and to work as

we can for a better, safer, more just community,

nation, and world.

 

So we won't let down. We won't be quiet. We will

continue to resist the lies, the deception, the

outrages of the Bush Administration. We will insist

that peace be pursued, and that, as a nation, we help

those in need. We must break the cycle of hatred, of

intolerance, of exploitation. We must pursue peace as

vigorously as the Bush Administration has pursued war.

It's up to all of us to do our part.

 

Thank you everyone for lending your voices to this

call for compassion, for peace, for greater humanity.

Let us keep in mind the injunction of Dr. Martin

Luther King, Jr.: " Our lives begin to end the day we

become silent about things that matter. "