Let impeachment process begin-"The War on Terrorism" is a facade.

[kpete]

Last updated January 31, 2008 4:23 p.m. PT

With at least 935 instances of deliberate lying, the Bush administration persuaded Congress and the American people to support the illegal, immoral wars. Bush and Cheney must be impeached.


Let impeachment process begin
RICHARD W. BEHAN
GUEST COLUMNIST

"The War on Terrorism" is a facade.

It was launched, we were told, to apprehend Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan and to effect regime change in Iraq. President Bush was handed opportunities to achieve each of those purposes quickly and without resorting to warfare, but he literally refused to do so.

Saddam Hussein offered in February 2002, a month before his country was invaded, personally to leave Iraq for exile in Egypt or Saudi Arabia. His offer was kept secret -- and rejected. Regime change was in fact a facade for a more ambitious objective: The Bush administration was already committed to the invasion and occupation of Iraq.

Also kept secret was a standing offer from the Taliban to the Bush administration to surrender Osama bin Laden -- an offer made long before the Trade Towers fell and the Pentagon burned. Three times before 9/11 and twice afterward, the administration refused the surrender. Bin Laden's capture was in fact a facade for a more ambitious objective: The administration already was committed to the invasion and occupation of Afghanistan.

The incursions into those countries were premeditated wars of unprovoked conquest and territorial occupation. They were undertaken to assure the geostrategic control of Middle Eastern oil and gas resources: Long suspected, this is now beyond dispute.

...................

more at:
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/349590_behan01.html

[wildbilln864]

1. k&r! thanks. n/t

:hi:

[DCKit]

2. I guess this bears repeating until everyone "gets" it. n/t

[autorank]

3. That Egypt story is the doggie that didn't bark.

So why the Hell did we invade? Oh, democracy, that's right. K*R

[Senator]

4. K&R&ImpeachToReuniteUS

[williesgirl]

5. Pelosi should resign as Speaker since she won't uphold her Constitutional duties. rec'd

[focusfan]

6. i agree with you 100%

the repukes didn't have a bit a trouble impeaching Clinton for
the blow job he got.so is George W.any better than Bill
Clinton

[onenote]

8. which constitutional duty would that be?

And if Pelosi were to call for a vote to start an inquiry and it lost, would everyone who voted against it be violating their constitutional duties? For that matter, who violated their constitutional duties in the Clinton impeachment farce -- those who voted to impeach, those who voted against? Those who voted to convict? Those who voted to acquit?

The only thing that the Constitution says about impeachment is that its solely within the power of the House to impeach and the Senate to convict/acquit. Solely -- meaning completley within their discretion. Saying that there is a constitutional "duty" to do something when there is no way to enforce it (other than at the ballot box, of course) is basically meaningless.

[Selatius]

15. You are right. The Constitution doesn't compel Congress to impeach if the president commits wrong.

It is entirely up to the discretion of the House. Perhaps the Founders were too confident in the ability of politicians to do what is right as opposed to what is politically expedient.

[warren pease]

7. I keep wondering what...

...we as a country did to deserve the simultaneous confluence of the worst administration in history and the most ineffectual congress in memory (although probably not in history), perfectly lined up like stars in the constellations of the zodiac and positioned to do the greatest possible harm and the least possible good.

Even as recently as Nixon, there were people of principle and courage in congress -- many on the GOP side of the aisle -- who for a variety of reasons decided that loyalty to the Constitution trumped loyalty to the executive branch.

Things started to really unravel with Reagan and the first true neocon administration, but at least Tip O'Neill was there to keep some of the worst excesses from becoming law and the craziest wingnut judges off of various federal benches.

Bush I spent so much time shooting himself in the foot it's amazing he wasn't confined to a wheelchair. All congress had to do was sit back and watch him self-destruct.

With Clinton, all pretense of bipartisanship disappeared and he spent eight solid years in the bulls eye of the Arkansas Project. But it's hard to have a lot of sympathy for him because a) much of the damage was self-inflicted and b) his triangulation strategy just turned him into a moderate/right republican, which made him one of the enemy.

But Pelosi, Reid, Hoyer, Emanuel, H. Clinton and the rest of these DLC non-entities have no business going up against the true hard cases -- exceptionally awful people like Bush II, Cheney, Rove, Rumsfeld, Rice, Gonzales, Ashcroft, Hadley, Libby, Addington, Lott, Inhoff, Yoo, Bolton (a pair), Delay, Hastert, Frist and on down the lengthy list of GOP swine, PNAC fanatics, fundie loons, immoral tycoons, bloody minded mass murderers and pathological thieves who would happily snatch the last piece of Halloween candy from a toddler if they thought they could sell it at a big enough profit.

Strongly worded letters, my ass. Stern statements, indeed. That'll take care of things.

How pathetic is it when Chris Dodd has to filibuster his own party's leadership to keep Reid from sucking Bush's toes on telecom immunity? Or when Pelosi has so little control over the members of her own party that she can't predict within 50 votes how any given referendum is going to turn out.

It'll be great to see the end of Bush and Cheney, assuming they're actually leaving on schedule. But it would also be great to see the end of Pelosi, Reid et al, along with maybe 100 representatives posing as democrats and another 25 or so senators doing the same.

This would be a great year for a purge, with actual progressives taking the seats now occupied by these useless -- or worse -- pack of GOP enablers and gutless appeasers. Too bad I'm not the praying type, although I doubt that even prayer could displace corporate money in the grand sewage generation machine that is the capitol.

wp

[countryjake]

13. I recommend your reply!

Thanks, warren pease!

[pat_k]

9. Don't need a litany of charges. Just one: Torture. Case closed.

We don't need a litany of charges. We don't need their 935 lies. When Bush and Cheney put torture "on the table" they made their removal a moral imperative.

Turning Americans into torturers destroys the heart of our identity as a nation. No nation that sanctions torture can claim to be a just or moral nation.

The treatment of the people who are in the custody of a state, and the processes by which they are committed to state custody are central to the identity and moral authority of a nation.

Whether it be an orphaned or abused child, a mental patient who presents a danger to self or others, a criminal suspect, a convicted criminal, or a person captured in armed conflict, if the processes for committing a person to state custody are immoral or unjust, then the state is immoral and unjust. If the treatment of those in custody is inhumane, then the state is inhumane.

The story of our nation is the story of our efforts to create a body of law committed to the principle that legitimate government power can only be derived from the consent of the governed; the sanctity of human dignity; and the inalienable right of every person to equal treatment under the law.

And under that body of law Drowning Torture ("Waterboarding" to the propagandists) is absolutely and unequivocally forbidden. It is as clearly forbidden as "The Rack" and "Thumbscrews."

Bush and Cheney refuse to acknowledge that Drowing Toture is immoral, inhumane, and prohibited in ALL circumstances. They refuse to acknowledge that arbitrarily seizing and indefinitely committing any person to U.S. custody is prohibited in all circumstances. They claim to have the absolute power to employ their own secret "defintion" of torture. They openly kidnap, indefinitely imprison, and abuse those they arbitrarlty label "enemy cambantas." They "defend" their acts by invoking the absurd notion that the American presidency has "unitary authoritarian power."

You don't need a law degree, or even a high school degree, to understand that absolute power like that is NEVER freely given to a leader; it is only taken by deception or force. Any claim that some "technicality" would give them the power to do that which we forbid must be rejected on it's face. To engage in argment is to legitimizes the illegitmate claim.

We can see that the emperor has no clothes. Unfortunately, fascists have decieved many Americans into believing that they are not fit to judge -- that they can't trust their own eyes. Even when we are in complete agreement that an act clearly violates our most treasured principles, many defer to authorities who tell us "it is all too complex for the likes of you."

Members of Congress are promoting that deception when they dismiss the truths we confront them with. They are promoting the deception when they refuse to formally accuse (impeach) and unequivocally reject the lunacy of a "unitary authoritarian executive." They are promoting the deception when they tell us impeaching Bush and Cheney will "take too long" or that it would be a "slow process."

The truth is that the case could be made in a day. (OK, the blowhards could probably draw it out to a week.) The Senate "trial" too. The charges could be on the Senate floor by valintines day.

We don't need to prove they they ordered government officials to torture. We know they did. We have proof that would stand up in any court, but we don't need them. They refuse to acknowledge that drowning torture is torture -- that alone makes them outlaws who cannot be allowed to weild massive power of the American presidency.

Congress is sworn to "support and defend" the Constitution. It is not an oath to win; it is an oath to fight. They have a duty to impeach NOW and seek to remove by the fastest means possible.

No lengthy "examination" or "investigation" of some litany of lies. Terrorizing the nation into war with threats of mushroom clouds makes them war criminals. Terrorizing us into is an intolerable abuse of our trust, a stain on the nation, a war crime that has subjected our troops and the Iraqi people to unimaginable horrors. Justice demand that they answer for those crimes Hague.

But the regime has not publicly claimed to have "unitary power" to deceive us. Their defense "we believed our own lies" is ludicrous, but it is a claim that must be proven false. Their claim to absolute power to turn Americans into torturers is false on its face.

Impeachment for any of their many crimes is better than no impeachment, but impeachment for torture is a call for the nation to recommit to the tenets on which our Constitution, and therefore the nation, is founded.

Impeachment for torture forces an "up or down" vote on this most egregious and indefensible of their "high crimes" against the Constitution itself. It force Members of Congress to choose:

• "Are we a nation that sanctions torture or forbids it?"
• "Is the USA a war criminal nation or just and moral one?"
• "Are you with the torturers or against them?"
• "Are we a nation founded on the principle of consent, or are we a an authoritarian regime?"

Whether they vote Yea or Nay as a body, it doesn't really matter. Members of Congress will make their choice, but theirs is not the last word. Forcing a vote allows the American people to will bear witness to what they do and render THEIR judgment in the voting booth.

By refusing to impeach, they are denying us OUR rightful opportunity to weigh in.

[Blaze Diem]

10. Some with common sense have been saying this was the reason Bush

was selected in 2000, followed by the questionable doubts of terrorism & 9-11, the reason they would use to garner the US Military and Treasury to complete this oilman's wet dream.
...repeated and repeated and here we have it AGAIN in writing like it was a grand new realization.
Remember the thousands of protestors and the Banners that declared 'NO BLOOD FOR OIL"? How long ago was that?
sheesh.

[Independent_Liberal]

11. I don't care what it takes, I'm here til the bitter end.

I want to be remembered as somebody who willing to stand up against fascism.

[AzDar]

12. K & R....

:kick:

[Selatius]

14. Harry Reid has fucked us over on FISA. There will be no impeachment. n/t

[Independent_Liberal]

16. We've got to keep fighting until they can no longer ignore us.