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

To: Raymond Duray who wrote (32377)	5/26/2005 10:02:38 AM
From: AuBug	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 93284

There is no reason on earth that we should be squandering money and people in 130 countries. I don't think we need one single base anywhere outside the US. Our military is for the sole purpose of protecting the US, not other countries too lazy to fend for themselves. I'd close every single foreign base today.

To: Raymond Duray who wrote (32377)	5/27/2005 3:06:20 AM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 93284

Don't demand answers; demand resignation _________________________________ by Jim Smith The Daily Barometer barometer.orst.edu Tony Blair has been taking quite a beating lately in the United Kingdom. Despite having just won a third term as prime minister, his party has been dealt a severe blow, resulting in the loss of nearly 100 seats in Parliament. Responsible for this setback is the recent leak of a top-secret U.K. internal government memo, which recorded the minutes of a meeting between British Prime Minister Blair and other key figures in British intelligence and military outfits, and the very embarrassing content therein. The text of the memo is available online, as it appeared in full in the London Times edition of May 1, and it sounds awfully exciting ... very cloak and dagger. It begins with the warning "secret and strictly personal -- U.K. eyes only." Farther down the page, just before the body of the memo is the following: "This record is extremely sensitive. No further copies should be made. It should be shown only to those with a genuine need to know its contents." And what exactly is it that we're not supposed to see? Nothing less than proof positive that the Bush administration was dead set on invading Iraq well before it was declared publicly that such a decision had been made. But this is only the tip of the iceberg. According to the head of MI-6, known as "C," "There was a perceptible shift in attitude [in Washington]. Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy." Well, there it all is, wrapped up nicely in one little paragraph. Bush wanted to invade Iraq, and he wanted to justify his actions by tying WMD to his shiny new war on terrorism. And that last part is the best; facts were "fixed" around the policy. "Fixed" is apparently British for "outright lies pulled out of the nearest ass." Why were the facts being fixed? Well, let's read on. According to British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, (their equivalent of our secretary of state), "It seemed clear that Bush had made up his mind to take military action, even if the timing was not yet decided. But the case was thin. Saddam was not threatening his neighbours, and his WMD capability was less than that of Libya, North Korea or Iran." Huh ... the case was thin. But I thought Iraq was a "grave and gathering threat" to all Americans and to the entire world. At least that's what Bush said. And he and Cheney implied at every turn that Saddam was connected to some vague and nebulous network of evil brown people who were going to detonate one 50 megaton rainbow colored atomic bomb for each and every vote cast for John Kerry last November. They were forced to rely on this fear motive because, as the British attorney general points out, "the desire for regime change was not a legal base for military action. There were three possible legal bases: self-defense, humanitarian intervention or UNSC (United Nations Security Council) authorisation." And in his estimation, "the first and second could not be the base in this case." This just serves to illustrate the differences between the British government and ours. What did Bush do? Exactly what the Brits said could not be done. He relied initially on the fabricated self-defense motive based on imaginary WMDs, and then when that fell through, he switched gears to the humanitarian role, wrapping himself in the flag and pretending to give a damn about the Iraqi people. At the time of this writing, almost nothing has been said in the American media about this, in sharp contrast to England, where the members of Tony Blair's Labour Party just had their asses handed to them. There have been some mentions lately though, most notably in the Chicago Tribune, though there is nowhere near enough coverage. Print coverage is great, but we have to remember that most Americans don't read their news. They are largely lazy, ignorant bastards who have to see a story on TV for it to be real. And why shouldn't this story be trying up the 24-hour news stations day and night? There is finally irrefutable evidence of what everyone with half a brain knew from the start. This war was engineered by Bush and his minions, and he lied to the entire world to wage it, resulting directly in thousands upon thousands of deaths. If a blow job is an impeachable offense, then this schmuck should be tried for his war crimes and subject to capital punishment if convicted. But there is no real outrage here in the states, because people don't know about it. Even the ones who do know are taking it fairly easy on those responsible. Rep. John Conyers of Michigan, along with more than 80 other members of Congress, have issued a press release demanding answers to questions "about confirmed reports of a pre-war deal between Great Britain and the United States and unassailable corroboration that pre-war intelligence was intentionally manipulated." Conyers continues, "These allegations strike at the heart of our democracy and present the most troubling constitutional questions. Did the administration lie to the American people about its intentions with respect to Iraq? Did the administration engineer a confrontation with Saddam Hussein to justify the war? Did the administration deliberately manipulate intelligence to deceive the American people about the strength of its case for war?" I am glad that Conyers has taken some action, but I am troubled by the weakness of this action. The answers he seeks are in the memo. The answer to every one of the above questions is a resounding "yes." And this is known to Conyers, as he himself refers to the memo as unassailable. Our congressional representatives should not be demanding answers that cannot be given, they should instead be demanding resignations and impeachment. _______________________________________ Jim Smith is a senior in philosophy. The opinions expressed in his columns, which appear every Thursday, do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Barometer staff. Smith can be reached at forum@dailybarometer.com.