How Bush’s Death Warrant on American GIs Sucks the Air Out of the Democratic Do-Something Congress

TINPOT DICTATOR

Bush is a liar. He tries hard to project the iron will of a great leader with his cocked eyebrows and steadfast gaze, but he is what he is: a little man drunk on power who slurs his speech. While oilman Cheney smirks in the background, the tinpot “war president” marches up to the podium and scolds the world day after day, year after year. We can’t take it anymore. Scores of books, articles, and documentaries have come out recently, written by investigative journalists, impartial historians, and other serious researchers who are all trying to document this huge deception for posterity. Painful as it is, finding out what happened before the trail grows cold is essential for the long-term health of our republic.

Why is it so hard to learn the truth? Already, partisan pundits and corporate-media types are distorting the public record. The United States ranked 53rd last year on the “Worldwide Press Freedom Index” (Reporters without Borders)—a sober reminder of how easy it is to repress in-depth reporting and replace it with jumbled-up sound bites on splashy, “infotainment” news. Thomas Jefferson lectured throughout his life on why democracy wouldn’t survive unless people are well informed, why the masses couldn’t rule themselves intelligently if they couldn’t vote intelligently.

The trend nowadays is to use focus groups to divine the will of the people. That’s a good thing, since according to the Constitution, politicians are elected not as leaders but as representatives of the people’s will. The problem is that sleazy politicians and their hacks can unfairly manipulate this invaluable data by pouring money into the media machine and spinning facts to support their unpopular ideologies in a cynical attempt to influence the sentiments of the electorate. It’s called lying.

To “move forward,” why don’t we start with the truth instead of the lie? Iraq is more about the politics of oil and corporate greed than of terror. Are we now to waste even more blood and treasure over this failed, dishonest policy? It is time we admit our mistake, quit occupying Arab holy lands, and wean our economy off oil. That is the only sane approach to all this madness. The last three decades since Carter, and the hundreds of billions spent fighting in the Middle East and subsidizing the oil industry, could have been used for research and development of alternative energy. Why does Washington bow to these kings of greed while ignoring middleclass values and American ingenuity? At what cost have corrupt politicians dishonored the namesake of our capitol?

Congress, with an eye on 2008, is somewhat guarded in its commitment to honest oversight. We should demand that our representatives do their job! It’s called issuing subpoenas and holding hearings. Whether or not investigations result in impeachment depends on where the facts lead, but that is beside the point; laying it all out under the glare of public scrutiny is an end in itself. Popular outcry and written law will determine what happens next. It’s called transparency, and that’s how a free society stays free.

Gerald R. Ford was a decent man who reluctantly dealt with another one of history’s big lies. The salient point in numerous eulogies was that he “healed a nation” by pardoning Nixon. Unfortunately, those eloquent speakers are trying to revise the history of that turbulent time by glossing over its true significance, perhaps hoping that this Congress won’t impeach this president for even greater crimes. Instead of bringing us together, Ford’s good intentions only added to the disillusionment by frustrating the will of a nation clamoring for justice, a nation founded on the principle that no one is above the law, especially a president who swears to defend the Constitution. Ford did not win the subsequent election because the majority was still angry that Nixon did not answer for his crimes—breaking some of the most basic laws guaranteed by the Bill of Rights.

Among its many other highly questionable activities, the Bush Administration stands accused of: purposely withholding vital information about the imminent failure of New Orleans levees, which could have tipped off thousands of unsuspecting victims; routinely abusing the “signing statement” privilege to circumvent important legislation; spying on citizens without obtaining warrants; suspending habeas corpus for “enemy combatants” rotting in
cages; “rendering” detainees to foreign prisons to be tortured; presenting a false case against Iraq to the U.S. Congress and to the United Nations; and worst of all, waging an illegal war of aggression, defying our own Constitution as well as the Geneva Convention.

If high officials violate their oath, our forefathers intended that the Articles of Impeachment provision (not followed up with a pardon!) would be the instrument that heals the nation, a safety valve that also protects our credibility in the eyes of the world and sends a powerful signal to any future politician who would lie about serious matters. What good is a nation of laws if there is no accountability at the top? We are turning into a nation of hypocrites, derided by friends and enemies alike.

Ryan

We get rid of it, that's what, and by whatever peaceful means are necessary.

"Well" (to quote Reagan), when are the DEMs gonna quit listening to and coddling these unConstitutional war criminals and IMPEACH THEM instead?

Excellent point. And by now, to be expected. Had the thugs stolen the last election, this "surge" would've been announced earlier. It comes now because there was no way they'd have left the airwaves to the Dems while they enacted their new policies. Not that the lapdog press couldn't still do their job and report on actual accomplishments, if they cared to. Try googling Jim Webb and his proposed GI bill to help the Iraq War vets...no media coverage. Only his own announcement and maybe a blog or two.

Keep up the good work, Buzzflash! Online drumbeats do get through, eventually.

Hey frogs, is the water boiling yet?

Democrats,

please answer just one question...

WILL YOU BLOCK THE WAR WITH IRAN?

Otherwise please tell me how you are in any way different from GOP (iraqi "surge" grandstanding notwithstanding)?

In fact the war with Iran has already started, and by the way everyone is avoiding the issue... I think it's pretty clear democrats' true masters, the AEI and AIPAC zionists, have decided to sacrifice US blood on the altar of greater israel. Will Democrats have enough backbone to even voice opposition to it?

Only one way to stop these nazis...

General strike, nationwide...

Nobody goes to work, EVERYBODY converges on Wash DC...

A tsunami of patriots against the madmen.

Impeachment and removal can technically occur in a single day.

Any rethugs stand in the way? Lynch 'em.

Any dems or so-called (lieberman) stand in the way? Lynch 'em.

If a last resort a human tsunami of many millions has to go grab bush, cheney, et al (don't forget scalia who made it all possible) to put 'em where they belong, at the end of a rope, so be it!

-----------------------------------

"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable."

-- John F. Kennedy (1917 - 1963)

"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants."
-- Thomas Jefferson

"To initiate a war of aggression, therefore, is not only an international crime; it is the SUPREME INTERNATIONAL CRIME differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole."

-- US Supreme Court Justice Robert H. Jackson, presiding over the Nuremburg Trials in 1946.

"This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it, or their revolutionary right to dismember or overthrow it." -- Abraham Lincoln

Administration officials have discussed among themselves whether they might need to withdraw support for Mr. Maliki if he doesn't perform, notably by building a new coalition in the Iraqi Parliament, [according to Mr. Gates].... He acknowledged that Mr. Maliki initially had wanted to carry out the intensified military effort in Baghdad without more American troops. In addition, American military commanders feared that, without American forces monitoring their operations, there could be even worse sectarian bloodshed. "Republicans on Panel…" David S. Cloud and Jeff Zeleny

The New York Times

, 13 Jan. 2007 (emphasis added).

There are a number of interesting insights lurking in the quotation above: first of all, it betrays how much the "sovereign" government of Iraq is actually a creature of the US, regardless of what we say about "democracy." We will find other, more compliant "leaders" in Iraq's parliament, Gates implied, if PM Maliki does not keep his promises. Are we entering into the phase we suffered in Vietnam when we arranged for Ngo Dinh Diem's removal and began a succession of South Vietnamese governments led by generals like Nguyen Cao Ky? Maliki replaced Jaafari, who replaced….

The second, more important insight is that Maliki wanted to bring Baghdad under control without American troops. The troop build-up announced by Bush might therefore be seen in a rather different light. It is not to bring Baghdad under control, but to maintain control of the troops Maliki would have used on his own.

So, the question becomes: what kind of control did Maliki have in mind? The answer is obvious: one in which ethnic cleansing played a large part, in which Sunnis were to be driven into undefended enclaves, or driven out from the capital altogether. This is the apparent agenda of the Shiite militias, those loyal to Moqtada el Sadr, and also the Badr brigades loyal to the largest Shiite party, the SCIRI, and of the death squads, which may be the same units or may be police affiliated with them. These are some of the militias that Maliki has pledged to disarm.

It doesn't look very likely he'll deliver on his pledge, does it?

It also doesn't look like an ordinary war. American troops, in effect, then, are to carry out two probably irreconcilable roles: to fight the anti-government insurgency, largely Sunni, and to protect Baghdad's inhabitants from--the insurgents and the Shiite militias! In other words, the additional American troops are going to be given the dual missions of counter-insurgency and of enforcing a peace. You might call them peace-makers in the latter role, but if, as expected, the US troops are not allowed, or supported by Maliki's men in incursions into Shiite controlled neighborhoods like Sadr City, then they will be placed in the position of making Sunnis more vulnerable to Shiite attacks, but of not being able to stop the accumulation of bodies at morgues, victims of militias and the death squads.

In other words, Maliki (or the people behind him) might be able to use the additional American troops to the Shiite end of "cleansing" the city of Sunnis, rather than the American goal of bringing some kind of secular, multi-confessional peace to Baghdad.

Wouldn't that be a switch! The US, which supposedly intervened in Kosovo to prevent ethnic cleansing, could actually end up aiding and abetting ethnic cleansing in Baghdad, not by US intention, but because Americans are being used by the Shiite government.

Douglas
http://www.roman-empire-america-now.com

Might I add that the ever compliant "mainstream media," a.k.a lap dog press, will label any and all Democratic U.S. Representatives attempting to cut funding for additional troops for Iraq as unpatriotic and anti-military, not to mention unAmerican.

Let's face it, unless there is a general mutiny of American forces stationed in Iraq this thing will drag on ad infinitum.

With their media lackies in tow they continue to divert and pervert the news.

MARCH ON WASHINGTON DC - STOP THE MADNESS! - THEY DIDN'T LISTEN TO OUR VOTES - THEY DIDN'T LISTEN TO THE GENERALS - THEY DIDN'T LISTEN TO COMMON SENSE - ONE MILLION PLUS PEOPLE ON THE STREETS TELLING THEM WHERE THEY CAN STICK THEIR "FREE SPEECH ZONES" THEY'LL HAVE TO LISTEN TO! JOIN US! MAKE THE TRIP! IF WE DON'T STOP THEM NOW - WE NEVER WILL!