It's funny how things tend to all develop at once.

Ten months ago, we started a coalition at AfterDowningStreet.org and organized people to demand coverage of the Downing Street Memos. Thousands of people had some hope of a breakthrough and worked hard to make it happen. We had some success. USA Today printed a list of excuses for being slow to start coverage. The Washington Post put it on the front page after editorializing that it would ignore the matter. The television news shows picked up coverage mid-story, pretending they'd been there all along. But, a few weeks later, interest dried up. And some outlets, notably the New York Times, never gave - and still haven't given - the Downing Street Memos significant play.

In the ensuing months we've seen a lot of new evidence, smoking gun after smoking gun. Those paying attention are all smoking-gunned out and want to move on to impeaching the owners of the arsenal. But those not paying close attention, not using the internet, not reading the international press, have never heard of many of the new pieces of evidence, which are listed on the left side of AfterDowningStreet.org. It's become harder and harder to motivate those in the know to bombard the media with demands to inform those who need to be informed.

The single most stunning piece of evidence that's passed unnoticed is the memo that two months ago we labeled the White House Memo. Philippe Sands discussed this memo in a new edition of his book Lawless World, and the Guardian and the BBC reported on it. In fact, at the beginning of February, it was a huge story in media outside the United States. Many of the articles that were published are collected here.

We set up this page to generate citizen demands for coverage in the US.

The Associated Press covered the White House Memo right away, but few papers printed the AP stories. The Christian Science Monitor did a story. USA Today wrote a dismissive blog entry. And Keith Olbermann mentioned the new evidence on MSNBC. But that was it. Then on February 11, the LA Times printed an article, using Sands's book as the source. But nobody else followed.

Until today. Today this story came out in a big way. And when it rains it pours. Within days of the LA Times mentioning permanent military bases in Iraq, Bush admitting he intends never to pull out of Iraq, and the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post covering the growing movement for impeachment, the New York Times has chosen at long last to acknowledge the White House Memo, and to acknowledge that Bush was intent on finding a way to go to war, that he was not - as he claimed at the time and still claims - trying to avoid war.

Now the networks are phoning around, asking how they can see the memo, hoping to assure their owners that they won't get Dan Rathered if they run with this story. Olbermann is back on the job, with Andrea Mitchell even bringing up the Downing Street Memo on the air tonight. Chris Matthews interviewed Philippe Sands this evening.

The media has a long, long way to go, still. A single day's attention could mean nothing if it's not sustained. The Times article avoids obvious conclusions, obscures actions with the passive voice, and fails to tie in pieces of evidence other than this single memo. Bush and Blair continue to claim that each piece of evidence is taken out of context. And they're right: each one should be put in the context of all the others we now have. And if there are more to be leaked, Karl Rove should know how to do the leaking.

TV producers are not making the connections. They're struggling just to learn the basics. One of them today asked me whether this new memo was the Downing Street Memo from July 2002, and if so why it was reportedly from January 2003.

And no one in the media is making the appropriate connection between today's New York Times story on war lies and Saturday's Washington Post story on impeachment.

Still, there is something about this week that feels better than the average one for bringing a child into the world. I have hope that others will have hope, and that this will let them press hard for action.

And there is something about bringing a child into the world that makes me want to push harder for a full measure of truth, and not be satisfied with the thrill of seeing bits of truth squeeze through.

Someone said: He not busy being born, is busy dying. That certainly goes for democracies.

The word for this week is euphemism. Eu- is a Greek term for ''well'' or ''sounding good,'' and pheme translates: ''speech.'' Good-sounding speech.

But if you think about when both ordinary and official euphemisms are used (by all of us), it's easy to see how they function. We use euphemisms to conceal our anxieties, fears or shame; to clothe the naked, God's-honest-truth about death, sex, religion, politics, business and, of course, intimate bodily functions. "I'm going to use the john/bathroom," for example. Instead of saying…well, you know.

Looking at it from a linguistic angle, euphemisms are actually little windows into our minds and hearts; peep holes into our culture. They are neither inherently good or bad. But, depending on who is euphemizing -- and/or what is being euphemized -- they can be either delicate and delightful or dangerous and deceiving.

On the delicate-and-delightful side, you've got euphemisms like sanitation engineer for trash man; associate or representative instead of employee, or politician in the place of bs artist (okay, the last one I just made up). These kind of euphemisms are relatively harmless and, in some cases, an expression of politeness.

When it comes to the dangerous-and-deceiving end of the spectrum -- and all manner of euphemisms in between -- the free-minded would do well to have a euphemism dictionary in their mental toolbox. I recommend Hugh Rawson's Dictionary of Euphemisms and Other Doubletalk.

Euphemisms get into dangerous-and-deceiving territory when they are used consciously, especially when used consciously by institutions. Rawson reminds us that while conscious euphemisms can make communication easier under difficult circumstances, they can ''also lead to double-thinking."

''They form a kind of code. The euphemism stands for something else, and everyone pretends that the 'something else' doesn't exist,'' he writes. ''As commendable as some of these goals may be it is this characteristic of euphemisms -- their ability to soften the world's hard edges -- that also makes them attractive to people and institutions who have something to hide, who don't want to say what they are thinking, and who wish to lie about what they are doing.''

In other words, when euphemisms are used not so much to avoid offense as to throw up a smoke-screen, then we've crossed into the realm of dishonest euphemisms, Rawson observes.

During peacetime the study of euphemisms can be a rewarding intellectual exercise. During times of war, when truth is the first casualty, keeping track of euphemisms is an indispensable part of understanding the current political reality.

I keep Rawson's book by my side for Bush administration press conferences. Air support? What's that? ''The official military term for what everyone else calls bombing.'' Col. David H. E. Opfer made that clear to news reporters at a press conference discussing the Vietnam War in 1973. ''You always write it's bombing, bombing, bombing. It's not bombing. It's air support,'' he told the press pool, who perennially just don't get it.

Listening to pundits and ''experts'' talk about Iran's nuclear build-up, you'd think that mere possession of nuclear (and/or bio-chemical) weapons is evidence of maniacal evil -- until you remember that our peace-loving country has the largest stockpiles of WMD on earth and we're the only country to have dropped a nuclear bomb on civilians. With our continued expansion and development of nuclear weaponry (i.e. ''bunker busters''), the chances grow each day that we'll have another ''broken arrow." A broken arrow, according to Rawson's dictionary, is ''a serious accident involving a nuclear weapon.''

If I had a dollar for every time I heard a war apologist use the words freedom and democracy, I could single-handedly avert the social security ''crisis'' and pay a handsome pension to retiring baby-boomers. If you think this is just expectorating in the wind, then you have a range-forward contract to stop reading. Or you may just be suffering from extended nutritional deprivation, as Reagan's 1984 Food Task Force defined hunger.

The latest evidence of their war crimes was revealed in secret British minutes of an Oval Office meeting on Jan. 31, 2003, when Bush, Blair and their top aides chillingly discussed their determination to invade Iraq, though still hoping to provoke the Iraqis into some violent act that would serve as political cover.

Bush, who has publicly told Americans that it was Saddam Hussein who "chose war" by refusing to disarm, was, in reality, set on invading Iraq regardless of Hussein's cooperation with United Nations weapons inspectors, according to the five-page memo described in detail by the New York Times. [March 27, 2006]

At the same Oval Office meeting, Bush cavalierly dismissed concerns that the U.S. conquest might not go as smoothly as he expected.

The President predicted that it was "unlikely there would be internecine warfare between the different religious and ethnic groups," according to the British minutes written by David Manning, then Blair's chief foreign policy adviser.

But Bush's judgment would prove tragically wrong, as more than 2,300 U.S. troops have died along with tens of thousands of Iraqis – possibly more than 100,000 – in three years of invasion, occupation and now sectarian violence.

Conniving Bush

The memo also reveals Bush as conniving to deceive the American people and the world community. At the meeting, Bush floated ideas for how to rally U.N. support for the invasion by engineering a provocation that would portray Hussein as the aggressor.

Bush suggested painting a U.S. plane up in U.N. colors and flying it over Iraq with the goal of drawing Iraqi fire, the minutes said.

"The U.S. was thinking of flying U2 reconnaissance aircraft with fighter cover over Iraq, painted in U.N. colours," the memo said about Bush's scheme. "If Saddam fired on them, he would be in breach."

Regardless of whether any casus belli could be provoked, Bush already had "penciled in" March 10, 2003, as the start of the U.S. bombing of Iraq, according to the memo. "Our diplomatic strategy had to be arranged around the military planning," Manning wrote.

At the Oval Office meeting, Bush also discussed possibly assassinating Hussein, according to the memo. (Bush, it should be noted, assured the American people that he would restore "honor and decency" to the Oval Office where Bill Clinton had sexual dalliances with Monica Lewinsky.)

According to the British memo, Bush and Blair acknowledged that no weapons of mass destruction had been found in Iraq, nor were they likely to be found in the coming weeks, but that wouldn't get in the way of the U.S.-led invasion.

Blair, however, stressed the need for a second resolution from the U.N. Security Council that would authorize the use of force. Bush agreed to try but felt he had the authority to attack Iraq whether the U.N. approved or not.

"The U.S. would put its full weight behind efforts to get another resolution and would twist arms and even threaten," the memo said about Bush's plans. "But he had to say that if we ultimately failed, military action would follow anyway."

Averted Eyes

Parts of the Jan. 31, 2003, meeting memo were disclosed earlier this year by British attorney Philippe Sands, author of the book, Lawless World. But Sands's disclosure received scant attention in the United States, where the major news media also has downplayed other revelations of Bush's duplicity about the Iraq War.

In 2005, the U.S. press mostly averted its eyes when a British newspaper disclosed the so-called "Downing Street Memo," which recounted the chief of British intelligence telling Blair in July 2002 that Bush was set on invading Iraq and that "intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy."

The major U.S. media also has failed to challenge Bush when he has claimed falsely that Hussein brought the war on himself by barring U.N. inspectors from his country.

"We gave him a chance to allow the inspectors in, and he wouldn't let them in," Bush said when he began revising the pre-war history in July 2003, four months after invading Iraq. "And, therefore, after a reasonable request, we decided to remove him from power."

Bush has repeated that lie in varying forms dozens of times since, including at a televised news conference on March 21, 2006. [See Consortiumnews.com's "Those Lies, Again."]

Nuremberg Precedent

Beyond more proof that Bush has lied consistently about Iraq, the Jan. 31, 2003, memo represents striking evidence that Bush, Blair and their top assistants violated the Nuremberg Principles and the U.N. Charter by launching an aggressive war against Iraq.

While many Americans think of the Nuremberg trials after World War II as just holding Nazi leaders accountable for genocide, a major charge against Adolf Hitler's henchmen was the crime of aggressive war. Later, that principle was embodied in the United Nations Charter, forbidding armed aggression by one state against another.

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson, who represented the United States at the Nuremberg Tribunal, made clear that the intent was to establish a precedent against aggressive war.

"Our position is that whatever grievances a nation may have, however objectionable it finds the status quo, aggressive warfare is an illegal means for settling those grievances or for altering those conditions," Jackson said, adding that the same rules would apply to the victors in World War II.

"Let me make clear that while this law is first applied against German aggressors, the law includes, and if it is to serve a useful purpose, it must condemn aggression by any other nations, including those which sit here now in judgment," Jackson said.

"We are able to do away with domestic tyranny and violence and aggression by those in power against the rights of their own people only when we make all men answerable to the law. This trial represents mankind's desperate effort to apply the discipline of the law to statesmen who have used their powers of state to attack the foundations of the world's peace and to commit aggression against the rights of their neighbors."

The British memos, combined with public statements by Bush and his senior aides, represent a prima-facie case that Bush, Blair and others violated the Nuremberg Principles and the U.N. Charter, to which the United States was a founding signatory.

While Bush has insisted that his invasion of Iraq was "preemptive" – defined as an act of self-defense to thwart an impending attack – his argument is not only laughable in the case of Iraq, but has been contradicted by his own advisers, including Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

Rice's Cultural Engineering

In a March 26 interview on NBC's "Meet the Press," Rice offered a different rationale for invading Iraq. She agreed that Hussein was not implicated in the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks nor did she assert that he was conspiring with al-Qaeda on another assault.

Instead, Rice justified invading Iraq and ousting Hussein because he was part of the "old Middle East," which she said had engendered hatreds that led indirectly to 9/11.

"If you really believe that the only thing that happened on 9/11 was people flew airplanes into buildings, I think you have a very narrow view of what we faced on 9/11," Rice said. "We faced the outcome of an ideology of hatred throughout the Middle East that had to be dealt with. Saddam Hussein was a part of that old Middle East. The new Iraq will be a part of the new Middle East, and we will all be safer."

Rice's argument – that Bush has the right to invade any country that he feels is part of a culture that might show hostility toward the United States – represents the most expansive justification to date for launching the Iraq War.

It goes well beyond waging "preemptive" or even "predictive" war. Rice is asserting a U.S. right to inflict death and destruction on Muslim countries as part of a social-engineering experiment to eradicate their perceived cultural and political tendencies toward hatred.

Despite the extraordinary implications of Rice's declaration, her comment passed almost unnoticed by the U.S. news media, which gave much more attention to her demurring on the possibility of becoming the next National Football League commissioner.

Yet Rice's new war rationale, combined with the British memo on Bush's determination to invade Iraq regardless of the facts, should be more than enough evidence to put Bush, Rice, Blair and other U.S. and British officials before a war crimes tribunal.

But that would only happen if Justice Jackson were right about the universal application of the principle against aggressive wars – and if all nations and leaders actually lived by the same rules.

Here's another Bush statement: "I'll use all resources at my disposal to protect the American people." Does anyone believe this when we've seen the Katrina fiasco? But there's soooo much more evidence than a natural disaster to tell us we're unprepared. Our borders have just been penetrated. Yes, it was just a little test to see if government agents could bring dirty bombs into the country. They could and did. We've seen example after example of just how exposed we are under the presidency of George. But he keeps telling us that his job is to secure our safety. We hear his words. Then, we see the lesions. The Dubai deal revealed the vulnerability of our ports. It seems each week we hear of another breach. And all George has to do is walk out, stand behind a podium in the Rose Garden or at some staged event, and say that his most important job is to keep us safe. It's the laying on of hands, the ritual of Bush baptism and the masses are subdued into complacency.

Sometimes, history must critique a president with his first betrayal. That means history is already tardy in delivering justice to George Bush. History should begin its prudence with the first act. So many people gave Bush and A for his bullhorn moment at Ground Zero. But, tell me, what leader wouldn't have done what he did? He captured and capitalized on a moment. History gave him a perfect score that week. America applauded. And he was intoxicated by the affirmation. He vowed to catch Osama. But he didn't. Later, he said he just doesn't think about bin Laden very much. Success in Afghanistan is an illusion. Progress in Iraq is propaganda.

Sadly, almost every single thing Bush has done has been dead wrong. Dead wrong for more than 2300 American troops. Dead wrong for more than 200 other coalition soldiers and dead wrong for countless Iraqis. Dead wrong for the families of the dead, wronged.

And all the mistakes and miscalculations present a definition of history easily understood. When a president is dead wrong about so much, history has to intervene and render a verdict which calls for more than the acceptance of Andrew Card's resignation. This is simply more card shuffling by George. More playing games. More playing his card tricks-the pick a card, any card. It's time for a real shakeup - something seismic - a shift that measures on the Richter Scale actions befitting the fault lines created by his administration.

Missy Beattie lives in New York City. She's written for National Public Radio and Nashville Life Magazine. An outspoken critic of the Bush Administration and the war in Iraq, she's a member of Gold Star Families for Peace. She completed a novel last year, but since the death of her nephew, Marine Lance Cpl. Chase J. Comley, in Iraq on August 6,'05, she has been writing political articles.

Another example of Wonderland's juggling of semantics is calling Iraqis who are resisting the occupation and punishing collaborators "insurgents". When Boston and Philadelphia was occupied by British Redcoats and France was occupied by the Nazis we did not call those heroes who fought in the underground insurgents; we called them patriots. Everyone from the war lovers to the peaceniks preface their remarks with "Our brave troops" completely disregarding the reality that they are fighting civilians with AK-47s and no body armor with helicopter gunships and fighter planes. These are highly paid mercenaries promised college educations who do not have to dig slit trenches or do KP. When they come back in coffins or wheelchairs and with post traumatic stress syndrome even they are betrayed by this government run by our sociopath mad hatter president.

On the other side of the looking glass the country of the slithy sloves is nine trillion dollars in debt. Over half of our tax money goes to the military industrial complex and we have twelve aircraft carrier groups roaming the oceans when there is no possible adversary. Our kindly Jimmy Carter, (peace nobelist) has proudly helped launch another nuclear submarine called, what else?, The Jimmy Carter. The war on terror desperately needs these weapons because if they happen to run across a terrorist they have to nuke him or her. Like the westerner sentenced by Roy Bean to be hung: "This will sure be a lesson to me judge."

When I was a teen-ager my father sarcastically said that "everyone else is crazy except you". That was seventy years ago and I am even more convinced that is the case. After WWII I saw a psychiatrist for what is now called post traumatic stress syndrome. I quit him with the words: I don't want to be adjusted to live in a world that is obviously crazier than I am. You do not have to look far to confirm my opinion. The headlines in this mornings paper should convince anyone.

FBI terror boss never read Moussaoui memo, Patent case poses broader question for Supreme Court, Abu Ghraib dog handler guilty of tormenting, Documents reveal Hussein tried in '90s to show WMDs gone, Bush says presence in Iraq will outlast his presidency, Conservatives get a turn at federal grants under Bush, False negatives seen in widely used genetic test for breast cancer risk, bottled water slaking thirst of world's poor, court overturns conviction in stolen rock art case. Chemical plants may decide own security, Iraqi official, paid by CIA raised questions on weapons program, the only reason I get the newspaper is for the New York Times crossword puzzle. I am suffering from information overload - all of it wacko.

http://users.abac.com/homer

WWII veteran,cofounder of The American Veterans Committee. Editor of the dairy page for the California Farm Reporter. Organizer for Harry Bridges longshoremen. President Eagle Lodge number one, AFL Papermakers Union. Member of Impeach Bush.

The 12 justices on France's Constitutional Council are set to deliver their judgment late this week on the legality of de Villepin's controversial law-which seeks to reduce chronic youth unemployment levels of over 20% by allowing businesses to fire workers aged 26 and under after less than two years on the job without having to dole out hefty severance pay. Detractors argue that the law ignores French constitutional guarantees of equal rights and treatment for all citizens - a general principle some claim would be violated if labor protection other workers enjoy were denied to younger employees.

If the court does actually throw the law out, it would provide de Villepin a convenient way to defuse the crisis without backing down. Once passed by parliament, laws can only be derailed if ruled unconstitutional, reversed by new legislation or if they are blocked by a president citing a rarely-used executive privilege. The latter two options would mark political capitulation, for both de Villepin and his backer President Jacques Chirac, and "seriously undermine his leadership authority with the public only one year before the presidential election," says Stèphane Rozés, deputy director of the CSA polling agency.

In the wake of the enormous protests across France today, Chirac cancelled planned trips out of Paris at the end of the week, when the key ruling is expected. If the courts rule in favor of the law - which for all intents and purposes would be against de Villepin - Chirac's protege could soon see his planned trip to the Presidential palace permanently cancelled.

The British action coincided with a huge labor protest in France over a new job law. French airports were expected to be affected but the Eurostar line from London to Paris was running.

In Liverpool, commuters faced disruption as the Mersey river tunnels shut and ferries stopped running. All buses and trains were canceled in Northern Ireland and in London 70 percent of schools failed to open.

The Tower of London was also closed and the river Thames anti-flood barrier reduced to emergency staffing levels. One airport, the regional Leeds Bradford, suffered minimal delays.

At issue is the government's decision to scrap the so-called 85-year rule, which states that members of the Local Government Pension Scheme can retire at 60 on a full pension if their age and years of service add up to 85 or more.

The unions argue that other, better paid, public sector workers are still allowed to retire at 60 and that the law targets those in lower paid, more menial jobs.

The change is due to come into effect in October this year.

LOW PAID SUFFER

Britain's state and private pensions system is creaking from the rising cost of an aging workforce. On one measure, the country is facing a 57 billion pound ($100 billion) shortfall in retirement savings which is around five percent of GDP.

Many industrialised nations, including the United States, Germany and Japan, have similar problems. As people live longer, birth rates fall and populations age, fewer people are working to support an increasing number of pensioners.

A commission created in 2004 to look at the problem has proposed raising the age at which people take a state pension from 65 now to at least 67 by 2050.

Employees in the Local Government scheme include home care workers, charity workers, refuse collectors and people who work in call centres, environmental services and housing associations.

Brian Strutton, national secretary of the GMB union, said his workers just wanted to see fairness in the system.

"Why should thousands of low paid, long serving dinner ladies and classroom assistants lose a quarter of their pension for retiring at 60 when the better paid teachers they work alongside can retire on an unreduced pension," he said in a statement.

A spokeswoman for Unison, the country's biggest union, said they had seen solid support across the country.