Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Keith Feral who wrote (163897)	6/8/2005 9:34:17 PM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 281500

If Watergate Happened Now _______________________________ With the GOP controlling Congress, there'd be no Watergate hearings. By Jonathan Alter Columnist Newsweek June 13 issue msnbc.msn.com From a distance, Watergate seems like a partisan affair. But that's because we tend to look at it nowadays through red- and blue-tinted glasses. In truth, President Nixon was forced to resign in 1974 by Republicans in Congress like Barry Goldwater, who realized from the so-called smoking-gun tape that he was a crook. This was after the Supreme Court—led by a Nixon appointee—unanimously ruled against him in the tapes case. But imagine if Nixon were president in this era. After he completed his successful second term, I'd have to write a retrospective column like this: President Nixon left office in 2005 having proved me and the other "nattering nabobs of negativism" wrong. We thought that his administration was sleazy but we were never able to nail him. Those of us who hoped it would end differently knew we were in trouble when former Nixon media adviser Roger Ailes banned the word "Watergate" from Fox News's coverage and went with the logo "Assault on the Presidency" instead. By that time, the American people figured both sides were just spinning, and a tie always goes to the incumbent. The big reason Nixon didn't have to resign: the rise of Conservative Media, which features Fox, talk radio and a bunch of noisy partisans on the Internet and best-sellers list who almost never admit their side does anything wrong. (Liberals, by contrast, are always eating their own.) This solidarity came in handy when Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein of The Washington Post began snooping around after the break-in at the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee. Once they scored a few scoops with the help of anonymous sources, Sean Hannity et al. went on a rampage. When the young reporters printed an article about grand jury testimony that turned out to be wrong, Drudge and the bloggers had a field day, even though none of them had lifted a finger to try to advance the story. After that, the Silent Majority wouldn't shut up. Some argue the Watergate story died right there, but Nixon's attorney general wasn't taking any chances. Just as in the Valerie Plame case, the Justice Department subpoenaed Woodward and Bernstein to testify before the grand jury about their sources. When they declined, they were jailed for 18 months on contempt charges. Talkingpointsmemo.com and a few other liberal bloggers complained that it was hypocritical—top White House aides were suspected of shredding documents, suborning perjury and paying hush money to burglars—but to no avail. Public support for the media had hit rock bottom. Whistle-blowers didn't fare much better. With Woodward and Bernstein out of business, the No. 2 man at the FBI, W. Mark Felt, held a press conference to air complaints that the White House and his own boss were impeding the FBI probe. Of course it was only a one-day story, with Ann Coulter predictably screaming that Felt was a "traitor." Rush Limbaugh dubbed Felt "Special Agent Sour Grapes" because he'd been passed over for the top FBI job. Within hours, the media had moved on to the tale of a runaway bride. And because both houses of Congress are controlled by the GOP, there were no "Watergate" hearings to keep the probe going. John Dean and other disgruntled former aides had no place to go. For a while, I hoped that the Nixon tapes might bring some justice. But soon the tapes just became more fodder for those legal shows on cable. The Supreme Court split 5-4, along largely partisan lines, as it did in Bush vs. Gore. That allowed Nixon to keep control of the tapes. When he burned them, the bipartisan outcry you would have heard in the old days over destruction of evidence was muffled by a ferocious counterattack from the GOP's legion of spinners. A group calling itself "Watergate Burglars for Truth" set up a 527 to argue that Bill Clinton and other Democratic presidents had ordered more black-bag jobs than Nixon. There was nothing to prove them wrong. Reports of a tape showing that Nixon directly ordered the cover-up were just rumors, not anything that could be posted on smokinggun.com. Nixon gave a TV interview to the British journalist David Frost in which he said, "When the president does it, that means it's not illegal." This explained why he felt comfortable approving the break-in at the office of Daniel Ellsberg's psychiatrist. Ken Duberstein and a few other principled Republicans weighed in that Nixon was bad news, but they were drowned out by former aides like Pat Buchanan and G. Gordon Liddy, who wanted to firebomb the Brookings Institution. When "Firebombing Brookings: Good Idea or Not?" became the "Question of the Day" on MSNBC, Liddy's radio show got a nice ratings boost. After Ralph Reed disclosed that Nixon and Henry Kissinger had been on their knees praying in the Oval Office, Nixon went up 15 points in the Gallup, double among "people of faith." Our long national nightmare was just beginning. © 2005 Newsweek, Inc. msnbc.msn.com

To: Keith Feral who wrote (163897)	6/8/2005 9:55:16 PM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 281500

Bush has caused GREAT DAMAGE to our country's reputation...This former Reagan Administration official makes a compelling case about WHY we must hold Bush (and Cheney) accountable for their actions... chroniclesmagazine.org Wednesday, May 18, 2005 A Reputation in Tatters By Paul Craig Roberts* George W. Bush and his gang of neocon warmongers have destroyed America’s reputation. It is likely to stay destroyed, because at this point the only way to restore America’s reputation would be to impeach and convict President Bush for intentionally deceiving Congress and the American people in order to start a war of aggression against a country that posed no threat to the United States. America can redeem itself only by holding Bush accountable. As intent as Republicans were to impeach President Bill Clinton for lying about a sexual affair, they have a blind eye for President Bush’s far more serious lies. Bush’s lies have caused the deaths of tens of thousands of people, injured and maimed tens of thousands more, devastated a country, destroyed America’s reputation, caused 1 billion Muslims to hate America, ruined our alliances with Europe, created a police state at home, and squandered $300 billion dollars and counting. America’s reputation is so damaged that not even our puppets can stand the heat. Anti-American riots, which have left Afghan cities and towns in flames and hospitals overflowing with casualties, have forced Bush’s Afghan puppet, “President” Hamid Karzai, to assert his independence from his U.S. overlords. In a belated act of sovereignty, Karzai asserted authority over heavy-handed U.S. troops whose brutal and stupid ways sparked the devastating riots. Karzai demanded control of U.S. military activities in Afghanistan and called for the return of the Afghan detainees who are being held at the U.S. prison in Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. Abundant evidence now exists in the public domain to convict George W. Bush of the crime of the century. The secret British government memo (dated July 23, 2002, and available here), leaked to the Sunday Times (which printed it on May 1, 2005), reports that 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. . . . But the case was thin. Saddam was not threatening his neighbors, and his WMD capability was less than that of Libya, North Korea or Iran. . . . The (United Kingdom) attorney general said that 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 (U.N. Security Council) authorization. The first and second could not be the base in this case. Relying on UNSCR 1205 of three years ago would be difficult.” This memo is the mother of all smoking guns. Why isn’t Bush in the dock? Has American democracy failed at home? COPYRIGHT 2005 CREATORS SYNDICATE INC. *Dr. Roberts is a John M. Olin Fellow at the Institute for Political Economy and Research Fellow at the Independent Institute. He is a former associate editor of the Wall Street Journal, former contributing editor for National Review, and a former assistant secretary of the U.S. Treasury. He is the co-author of The Tyranny of Good Intentions.

To: Keith Feral who wrote (163897)	6/8/2005 10:53:43 PM
From: geode00	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

1. There were no WMDs to remove. Bush admits this, the US Military admits this, everyone but you apparently admits this by now. Impeachment is not about opposition to war but a political action designed to penalize a President who has committed serious crimes against the country. Were the war JUST and LEGAL but UNPOPULAR, this would be not be the issue. 2. The Sunnis and Al Qaeda are two different sets of people. Please pay attention to the players. 3. There is an insurgency in Iraq because the US of A invaded Iraq, disbanded the military and the bureacracy and left a power vacuum in its wake. Since we went in with only about 1/3rd the required number of troops AND we ignored basic security, we allowed the country to spin into chaos. 4. Bush is 100% responsible for the subsequent terrorism in Iraq. 5. Iraq is much too dangerous for NGOs to be camped out anywhere. After it became clear that the US could not provide adequate security, even the UN had to leave. 6. Having Shiites yammer in the press about the Sunnis only deepens the sectarian violence and the civil war in Iraq. What is the purpose of that? 7. This war has nothing whatsoever to do with Hawks and Doves. It has to do with morality and immorality, rule of law and chaos, competence and incompetence. The Bush administration is morally corrupt and, unfortunately, militarily incompetent. It is also financially both corrupt and incompetent. 8. Iraq in civil war is the entire ME in upheaval. Remember that we will be increasingly dependent on foreign oil so this affects us as well. In addition, Bush's incompetence in Iraq is fostering an entire generation of jihadists which sees us as the enemy. 9. Republicans have worked hard to earn the disrespect of the opposition, of the majority of the country and of the world. To support Bush and the Republicans in their efforts to undermine democracy and the rule of law in the US for their own personal profit is to be IMMORAL.

To: Keith Feral who wrote (163897)	6/9/2005 6:38:33 AM
From: Sun Tzu	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Hi Bob, I am not morally opposed to war as I am not a strict pacifist. In fact I am not even a Democrat, so I have no political beef with Bush either. And like most people I hate Saddam's guts, so I shed no tears for him. All this said, going to war is a serious undertaking. Don't you think the government is responsible for efficient conduct of war and that extreme incompetence should be a punishable crime? And if per chance the government cooked up the case to go to war, don't you feel deceived and defrauded out of the billions of dollars that should otherwise been spent on education, health care, or just paying down the debt? Under what circumstances do you think the government should be held accountable for its actions and what makes an impeachable crime? I urge you to get the facts from cooperativeresearch.org Not only has Bush squandered the moral authority of US (by all means, go on the web and read the world views not from ME, but from UK or Germany or any NATO member), and not only has Bush restricted the civil liberties more than any other president, but he is also planting the seeds of most dangerous terrorism we will see in years to come. Then there is the matter of his treatment of the military personnel. He sees fit to squander billions upon billions on corrupt or useless defense contracts, but when it comes to the veterans he is in the mood for cost cutting?! Take a look here cooperativeresearch.org here are some excerpts: October 2003 Approximately 600 sick or injured members of the US Army Reserves and National Guard are in “medical hold” at Fort Stewart where they are kept “in rows of spare, steamy and dark cement barracks in a sandy field” while doctors review their cases to determine how sick or disabled they are and whether or not they are eligible to receive benefits. Many of the soldiers in medical hold complain that they have been languishing there for “months” and that the conditions are “substandard.” Some soldiers also claim that the Army is trying to refuse them benefits on grounds that their injuries and illnesses are due to a pre-existing condition. Willie Buckels, a truck master with the 296th Transportation Company, explains to UPI reporter Mark Benjamin how he feels about the Army's treatment of the soldiers: “Now my whole idea about the US Army has changed. I am treated like a third-class citizen.” [United Press International, 10/17/2003; CNN, 10/19/2003; United Press International, 10/20/2003; The Coastal Courier, 10/22/2003] December 2004 Upon being released from Fort Hood, Texas, 27-year-old Spc. Robert Loria is presented with a $1,768.81 bill from the US Army. [Times Herald Record, 12/10/2004 [a]] Loria was seriously injured on February 9, when the Humvee in which he was riding was hit by a roadside bomb. [Philadelphia Inquirer, 3/21/2004] The explosion “tore Loria's left hand and forearm off, split his femur in two and shot shrapnel through the left side of his body.” [Times Herald Record, 12/10/2004 [a]] After four months of rehabilitation at Walter Reed Hospital in Washington, D.C., he was sent to Fort Hood where he stayed several more months. When he is finally ready to leave, instead of receiving a check for the $4,486 he thought was owed to him, he receives a huge bill. The Army says he owes $2,408.33 for 10 months of family separation pay that the Army mistakenly paid him, $2,204.25 in travel expenses from Fort Hood back to Walter Reed for a follow-up visit, and $310 for unreturned equipment that Loria says was damaged or destroyed when his Humvee was attacked. Including taxes, the total amount Lori owes the Army is $6,255.50, almost two thousand more than the amount he thought was owed to him. After a local newspaper runs a story on his situation and causes a public uproar, the Army waives most of Loria's debts. [Times Herald Record, 12/10/2004 ; The Seattle Times, 10/11/2004; Associated Press, 12/11/2004] Read more here cooperativeresearch.org And don't even get me started on his environmental record. Did you know that he has systematically appointed members of the most polluting industries in charge of EPA? How much sense does that make? At this point, no matter how you voted, you have to ask yourself why do you support Bush and why should he not be held accountable for lies and incompetence? ST PS How come the yo-yo threat levels are not as recurring now that the election is over? Are the terrorists active only during presidential elections? If so, then perhaps to remove such a threat and make the country safer Bush should dismantle presidential elections until the war on terror is over.