Majority Whip Richard Durbin, number two Democrat in Congress, “knew that the American public was being misled into the Iraq war but remained silent because he was sworn to secrecy as a member of the intelligence committee,” according to the Washington Times. “The information we had in the intelligence committee was not the same information being given to the American people. I couldn’t believe it,” the Congress critter admitted. “I was angry about it. [But] frankly, I couldn’t do much about it because, in the intelligence committee, we are sworn to secrecy. We can’t walk outside the door and say the statement made yesterday by the White House is in direct contradiction to classified information that is being given to this Congress.”

Sworn to secrecy and responsible for the murder of nearly a million Iraqis and three thousand, possibly ten thousand U.S. soldiers, thus making not only Mr. Durbin a war criminal but the whole of Congress. Senators John D. Rockefeller IV and Carl Levin, members of the same intelligence committee as Durbin, are at the head of the war criminal list, right after Bush, Cheney and the neocons, because these “two Democrats said publicly before the war that Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein was intent on pursuing nuclear weapons,” that it to say they had the same information as Durbin.

In a somewhat more equitable and just world, the lot of them would be doing the perp walk in orange jumpsuits. Unfortunately, we live in a world nowhere near equitable and just, a world where men of Durbin’s caliber make statements indicating he knew, and obviously a lot of other Congress critters knew, the neocon invasion of Iraq was predicated on “intelligence failures,” i.e., absolute and calculated lies, and yet Durbin did not try to stop the murder of hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqis because he was “sworn to secrecy.”

Beyond the Washington Times, this news is apparently not worth the light of day, as a Google News search produces a mere handful of results, most notably Fox News, which gave it a predictable spin, namely that Congress digested and embraced the engineered neocon lies about Saddam and his illusory weapons of mass destruction and the fairy tale that Saddam held tea and biscuit parties for “al-Qaeda” in Baghdad. All of this was plainly obvious at the time, but the corporate media eagerly disseminated neocon fabrications to a mostly indifferent and distracted American public, a can’t be bothered public almost as complicit in war crimes as Durbin.

Meanwhile, a “left-leaning, activist crowd,” according to the Boston Herald, enthusiastically welcomed war criminal Hillary and would-be war criminal Obama in California. “Obama, who has made his early opposition to the Iraq conflict a central theme of his campaign, told delegates he was proud to have bucked popular opinion at the time. It was a subtle but direct jab at Clinton, who voted in 2002 to grant Bush authority to invade Iraq.”

Plan Obama, however, does not set a withdrawal date and in fact would keep troops in Iraq for “counter-terrorism,” that is to say they would continue killing Iraqis opposed to the occupation of their country. Of course, Iraq is not Iran or Pakistan, two countries Obama affirms may need to be on the receiving end of “surgical missile strikes,” even though such would “further strain relations between the U.S. and the Arab world,” as the Chicago Tribune reported back in September, 2004. Apparently, this is not a big deal for the “left-leaning, activist crowd,” so long as it is a Democrat doing the killing and not a Bush neocon.

But then, of course, Democrats, even “left-leaning” Democrats, are not opposed to mass murder campaigns, as they supported Bill Clinton’s criminal bombing of Yugoslavia. “Democrats prefer Clinton wars and Republicans prefer Bush wars. But in the end, they almost unanimously come together to support all wars. The differences concern the choice of official rationale,” writes Diana Johnstone.

And, in regard to Iran, this “official rationale” differs little from that of the neocons. Speaking before AIPAC last month, Obama “said global leaders must do whatever it takes to stop Iran from enriching uranium and acquiring nuclear weapons,” according to the Chicago Sun-Times, and never mind there is no evidence of this dreaded acquirement. “Our job is to renew the United States’ efforts to help Israel achieve peace with its neighbors while remaining vigilant against those who do share this vision,” Obama told AIPAC.

In addition, Obama the “antiwar candidate” told AIPAC the “consequence of the Administration’s failed strategy in Iraq has been to strengthen Iran’s strategic position; reduce U.S. credibility and influence in the region; and place Israel and other nations friendly to the United States in greater peril.” In order to right this perceived wrong—that is, a wrong perceived by AIPAC, not the American people—Obama issued a “gloves-are-off memo” stating the United States, if he is selected as ruler, “wouldn’t rule out force” because job one of the neolib elite is “to never forget that the threat of violence is real.”

Indeed, the “threat of violence is real,” and it will continue to be so long as Democrats and Republicans lord over the political process, as they will come 2008.