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Politics : Impeach George W. Bush -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: ecommerceman who wrote (7723)	11/16/2001 2:42:11 PM
From: Zoltan!	Respond to of 93284

That was really stupid. I guess the writer doesn't know that Europe and Israel learned that the Dem plan is the wrong way and have largely privatized airport security. But the Dems hardly care about security. Witness: One of Clinton's closest confidants admits that Clinton is to blame for 9/11: Clinton's failure to mobilize America to confront foreign terror after the 1993 attack led directly to 9-11 disaster WHEN the terrorist gang controlled by Bin Laden exploded a bomb in the World Trade Center in 1993 killing six and injuring 650 others, President Clinton did not even visit the site of the attack. In his radio address the next day, he expressed his grief and outrage and four days later visited New Jersey where he sent a message to New Yorkers saluting our courage. Other than those statements, he remained aloof and uninvolved. The attack occurred in the second month of Clinton's presidency. Issues like gays in the military, the recession, and withdrawing our troops from Somalia loomed larger than the 1993 attack. Clinton deliberately remained removed from the attack perhaps in the hope that he would not be blamed so early in his presidency. Where Bush insisted, from the outset, that the Trade Center attack that took place on his watch was a declaration of war by foreign terrorists against the United States, Clinton treated the attack as a criminal justice situation not unlike the subsequent bombing of the Federal Office Building in Oklahoma City. But while in Oklahoma, he connected emotionally with the victims, he had nothing to do with them in 1993. His failure to mobilize America to confront foreign terror after the 1993 attack had dire consequences and led directly to the 2001 disaster. Two years after the 1993 attack, Sudan, sick of sheltering Bin Laden, offered to turn him over to the United States for prosecution. But, without the president breathing down their neck, investigators had not yet discovered that Bin Laden was behind the 1993 attack. Claiming that we lacked evidence to proceed, the US refused Sudan's offer and suggested they turn him over to the Saudis instead. In doing so, the US was disingenuous. We knew full well that the Saudi Arabian kingdom could not afford politically to prosecute their home-grown terrorist. Clinton was removed, uninvolved, and distant where the war on terror was concerned. CIA director Woolsey now reveals that he never had a private personal meeting with Clinton during the first two years of his tenure as head of the CIA - exactly the key period in investigating the 1993 attack. I had a good illustration of Clinton's remoteness from terrorist issues in 1996 when Dick Holbrooke called me, several months after the terrorist attack on US barracks in Ridyah, Saudi Arabia. Holbrooke, who told me that he had never had the opportunity to speak with Clinton directly during the months that he was negotiating the Dayton peace accords in Bosnia, asked that I get hold of the president to pass along a message. Holbrooke said that he had information that the terrorists were planning another attack in Ridyah and that our troops were highly vulnerable. "They are stuck in the same buildings the terrorists attacked last time," Holbrook told me. "All that has changed is that there are more formidable concrete barriers against car bombs. But a bigger bomb would be just as lethal. They need to be dispersed and camped in the desert in tents with a secured perimeter," he warned. I called the president and passed along Holbrooke's message. He had no idea that the troops were still in the barracks and said that he had ordered them dispersed to the desert six weeks before. "I've got a meeting with the Joint Chiefs in the morning," the president said "I'll raise hell with them." Shockingly, he was so little involved in protecting our troops - already the object of a terrorist attack - that he had no idea that his order had not been executed until I happened to call. Clinton was a one-thing-at-a-time president. Capable of intense focus on the issue du jour, he neglected all back burner concerns. And terror was always on the back burner. Throughout the first part of his second term, Clinton was immobilized by impeachment. Battling desperately to save his presidency, he simply had neither the time nor the mental energy to immerse himself in a war against terror. Blame him for the perjury that caused impeachment. Blame the GOP for pursuing him. Blame whoever you want, but we were without a president from January, 1998 until April, 1999. Thereafter, his administration was almost wholly devoted to electing Hillary to the Senate and, to a lesser extent, to making Gore president. Once again, terrorism was not the priority. It never was. Now it is. jewishworldreview.com

To: ecommerceman who wrote (7723)	11/16/2001 6:44:14 PM
From: Mephisto	Respond to of 93284

The House lost sight of its priorities: the interests of the American people. In this instance, the House neglected to consider the safety of the public who use airplanes for transportation. What the House focused on was its members concerns: a federal bureaucracy Eventually, we may need a federal department to look after the manufacture and distribution of vaccines and medication because of the threats of bioterrorism. The government must ensure that we have an adequate supply of vaccines. I suppose the House will toss out that idea as well. Or they will toss it out until one of their kids or one of their grandchildren come down with ebola or small pox.

To: ecommerceman who wrote (7723)	11/16/2001 7:16:20 PM
From: Mephisto	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 93284

A Travesty of Justice "...... Mr. Bush is eroding the very values and principles he seeks to protect, including the rule of law." Editorial The New York Times November 16, 2001 President Bush's plan to use secret military tribunals to try terrorists is a dangerous idea, made even worse by the fact that it is so superficially attractive. In his effort to defend America from terrorists, Mr. Bush is eroding the very values and principles he seeks to protect, including the rule of law. The administration's action is the latest in a troubling series of attempts since Sept. 11 to do an end run around the Constitution. It comes on the heels of an announcement that the Justice Department intends to wiretap conversations between some prisoners and their lawyers. The administration also continues to hold hundreds of detainees without revealing their identities, the charges being brought against them or even the reasons for such secrecy. The temptation to employ extrajudicial proceedings to deal with Osama bin Laden and his henchmen is understandable. The horrific attacks of Sept. 11 give credence to the notion that these foreign terrorists are uniquely malevolent outlaws, undeserving of American constitutional protections. Military tribunals can act swiftly, anywhere, averting the security problems that a high-profile trial in New York or Washington could pose. But by ruling that terrorists fall outside the norms of civilian and military justice, Mr. Bush has taken it upon himself to establish a prosecutorial channel that answers only to him. The decision is an insult to the exquisite balancing of executive, legislative and judicial powers that the framers incorporated into the Constitution. With the flick of a pen, in this case, Mr. Bush has essentially discarded the rulebook of American justice painstakingly assembled over the course of more than two centuries. In the place of fair trials and due process he has substituted a crude and unaccountable system that any dictator would admire. The tribunals Mr. Bush envisions are a breathtaking departure from due process. He alone will decide who should come before these courts. The military prosecutors and judges who determine the fate of defendants will all report to him as commander in chief. Cases can be heard in secret. Hearsay, and evidence that civilian courts may deem illegally obtained, may be permissible. A majority of only two-thirds of the presiding officers would be required to convict, or to impose a death sentence. There would be no right of appeal to any other court. American civilian courts have proved themselves perfectly capable of handling terrorist cases without overriding defendants' basic rights. Federal prosecutors in New York recently won guilty verdicts against bin Laden compatriots who were accused of bombing two American embassies in Africa in 1998. Osama bin Laden himself was indicted in those attacks. Federal courts have ample discretion to keep sensitive intelligence under seal, while still affording defendants a legitimate adversarial process. The law already limits the reach of the Bill of Rights overseas. American troops need not show a warrant before entering a cave in Afghanistan for their findings to be admissible at trial in the United States. Using secretive military tribunals would ultimately undermine American interests in the Islamic world by casting doubt on the credibility of a verdict against Osama bin Laden and his aides. No amount of spinning by Mr. Bush's public relations team could overcome the impression that the verdict had been dictated before the trial began. Reliance on tribunals would also signal a lack of confidence in the case against the terrorists and in the nation's democratic institutions. A better way to administer justice must be found. If Mr. Bush is determined to bring terrorists to trial abroad, he should ask the United Nations Security Council to establish an international tribunal like the one set up to deal with war crimes in the Balkans. The proceedings of this court have been fair and effective, and it is respected around the world. If Slobodan Milosevic can be brought to trial before such a court, so can Osama bin Laden. More than half a century ago the United States and its allies brought some of history's most monstrous criminals to justice in Nuremberg, Germany. In his opening statement at the trial of Nazi leaders, Robert Jackson, the chief American prosecutor, warned of the danger of tainted justice. "To pass those defendants a poisoned chalice is to put it to our lips as well," he said. President Bush would be wise to heed those words. nytimes.com