David Swanson first became known to progressives in the U.S.back in 2005 when he helped publicize the Downing Street Memos, the minutes of a meeting amongst the British Prime Minister's senior ministers in July of '02 that documented discussions about going to war in Iraq well in advance of when the U.S. and Great Britain said they had any intention of doing so
He's been extremely active in the anti-war movement since then, and has just published a book, Daybreak: Undoing the Imperial Presidency and Forming a More Perfect Union. He will be coming to the Tampa Bay area next week, with appearances scheduled for Tarpon Springs, Sarasota and Eckerd College.
We spoke with Swanson via phone about his new book and his thoughts on the Obama presidency, Afghanistan and the state of activism a year after George W. Bush.
You became well known with the Downing Street Memos. Can you tell our readers what that was all about?
We started a coalition in May of 2005 called After Downing Street, to expose and publicize crimes and abuses of power and to push for corrective measures in legislation and Congressional actions and impeachment. The Downing Street minutes is by no means the strongest piece of evidence of that crime of lying us into an aggressive war in Iraq. But it was in May of '05. And it was a moment that a lot of Americans believed that by exposing that information, we might compel Congress to do something about it. Specifically to impeach Bush and Cheney and end the wars.
This article appears in Sep 30 – Oct 7, 2009.