Bush/Cheney Violate Law Requiring Anti-Terror Plans
Submitted by davidswanson on Wed, 2008-06-04 22:24.
By Rob Hager, Don't Wait
Madam President? Impeach Now Before it is Too Late:
Government Report, Democrats, Accuse Bush of Violations for Missing Plans Mandated by Congress to Deal with Threat of Terrorism
The Bush Administration and the mainstream news media would have us believe that the greatest current threat to our national security is from Iran. In fact, the leading threat to the United States is the current administration's own negligence. Despite repeated official warnings that there is an imminent threat to the US origininating on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, the Bush administration has refused, in violation of federal law, to make plans to deal with that threat.
Until now the Democratic Congress has declined to make Bush and Cheney accountable for all the various laws they have broken since 2001 in the only effective way it can: impeachment. They worry that though Congress may impeach, the Senate will not vote by the necessary 2/3 majority to convict. In the calculation of Democrat vote-counters, the inevitable failure of the Senate to convict on the impeachment charges (lacking a 2/3 Democrat Senate majority) does not justify the risk that impeachment by the House might cost them the margin of victory in 2008. They fear some voters may see impeachment as the kind of divisive and diversionary party politics that the Republicans displayed when they controlled Congress during the Clinton era. Meanwhile many voters are reinforced in their doubts whether the Congressional Democrats constitute an authentic opposition party. And we all have to take the chance that the incompetent Bush Administration will do no further irreversible damage to the security, economy and Constitution of the United States - such as by making an illegal attack on Iran - before adult supervision is restored to the executive branch.
But the frat-boy in chief has just been caught breaking one law, discussed below, that could soon have the most devastating consequences for the country, and therefore should cause Democrats to recalculate. After the crime of the century, Bush, acting like a small town sheriff took his posse out to capture the killers, and ended up in the wrong town. Made a real mess of that, too. His cowardly town council suggested politely where the killer gang had actually holed up, asked the sheriff to make a plan to go shut down their hideout and break up the gang. They did not ask him to actually do it. He was still too mired in his own incompetence and the mess he made of the other town. Just a plan is all the timid council wanted, so they would not be criticized at the next election in case something happened.
There is new evidence that something very bad might be about to happen, and it is not coming from Iran. Even after their own 2002 national security strategy, and The 9/11 Commission Report (Washington D.C.: GPO, 2004) recommended a plan for dealing with the threat from the Afghanistan/Pakistan frontier, the Decider and his uncle Dick never made that plan. So Congress passed laws requiring them to make a plan, and to submit their plan to Congress. Bush and Cheney made excuses that they needed to eavesdrop on phone calls, torture, and otherwise rip up the Constitution or they couldn’t take care of the killer gang – but made no mention of dealing with the killers’ known hideout in the remoter regions of a supposed ally in the "war on terror." They figured if al Qaeda came back to town, they could blame the failure on Congress for not going along with appointing them dictators. After the next terrorist catastrophe the cowering Democrats just might agree to take that last step toward scrapping democracy in America. Making a plan to actually go out and do the job they took an oath to do – defend the Constitution and faithfully carry out the duties of their executive office - would just get in their way. So they never did make the comprehensive plan to deal with the threat from the Pakistan frontier that they were required to do by law. Until now the timid Congress has been played like a fiddle.
more...
http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/node/33900
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
