KUCINICH AND BEARING POINT REVELATIONS: THOSE NOT LISTENING OR PAYING ATTENTIONS ARE FOOLS AND A SERIOUS PART OF OUR PROBLEMS.
ADD THE SHEEHAN RESIGNATION FROM THE ANTI WAR MOVEMENT AND THE McCLATHY PRESS SUMMARY AND ONE CAN SEE THAT THE DEMOCRATS NEED TO WAKE UP BECAUSE THEY ARE ON THE WRONG PATH; THE ONE THAT DOES NOT LEAD TO THE WHITE HOUSE IN 2008!
POST CONCLUDING LINKS: THE DEPTH AND ORIGINS OF OUR NATION’S CURRENT POLITICAL SEISMEC SHIFT.
WASHINGTON, May 22 /PR Newswire-US Newswire/ -- At approximately 11:00 a.m. tomorrow, Congressman Dennis Kucinich will invoke a rarely used procedure to offer a privileged motion claiming one hour of time to speak on the floor of the House of Representatives about current legislative plans to privatize Iraq's oil.
This will be the first time in Congress that there has been a full discussion of the covert efforts to accomplish privatization of Iraq's oil through the supplemental spending bill.
Kucinich has alerted his colleagues to this concern in the past. Tomorrow he will do so on the floor of the House.
Kucinich argued against invading Iraq prior to the 2003 vote that authorized it. He published his case against it and helped persuade many of his colleagues to vote No. Kucinich challenged the legality of the war in court in an effort to prevent it. He proposed a detailed plan to end the occupation of Iraq over three years ago. His current plan is found in his bill HR 1234, which includes these findings:
"Any attempt to sell Iraqi oil assets during the United States occupation will be a significant stumbling block to peaceful resolution. There must be fairness in the distribution of oil resources in Iraq."
Kucinich has voted against every new funding bill for the occupation, including the recent Supplemental. He supports using the power of the purse to end the war. He opposes any attack on Iran and proposes formally forswearing the use of so-called preventive war. He has proposed the creation of a Department of Peace to address international and domestic violence.
Website:
http://www.trafficresults.com/click-rabbit.php?acctid=y1p/hwUJwG0=&docid=CLTU12323052007-1&redirect=1&url=http://www.kucinich.us/Kucinich claims war masks the real objective: Iraqi oil
Thursday, May 24, 2007
Stephen Koff
Plain Dealer Bureau Chief
Washington- It's all about Iraq's oil - rich, abundant, and coveted by multinational companies waiting to line their deep pockets.
Or so said Rep. Dennis Kucinich Wednesday in an unusual hour long address on the House floor. He laid out his contention that the White House and Democratic-led Congress are helping oil companies grab a stake in Iraq's vast oil fields while claiming to be interested merely in winding down the Iraq war.
The claim has brought Kucinich derision within his own Democratic Party. Leaders reject the suggestion that they would help "privatize" Iraqi oil. And Republicans dismiss him altogether, with Republican Party spokesman Dan Ronayne saying, "It sounds like congressman Kucinich is trying to get noticed with a nutty conspiracy theory."
But elements of Kucinich's claim appear to be based on theories about geopolitics and oil as much as on any conspiracy.
At the heart of the issue is a measure that, if ratified by the Iraqi parliament, would set the stage for rebuilding the war-torn country's oil industry. Oil in Iraq, with the world's third-biggest reserves, could pay for massive reconstruction and modernization.
But Iraq's pipelines and terminals have been neglected or sabotaged. The industry needs to be rebuilt - yet there is promise, since only 15 of Iraq's 74 discovered oil fields have been developed, according to a study by Amy Myers Jaffe, a fellow in energy studies at Rice University in Houston.
Who should develop that? What role should Baghdad play and what role should provincial governments have? If private industry helps, how should it be rewarded?
The framework for answering these questions is in the bill before the Iraqi parliament - a bill that's been gaining detractors in Iraq. Some members of Congress - but not Kucinich - say it or some other so-called hydrocarbon act could serve as a benchmark for Congress and the administration to measure Iraq's progress. It could be a measure on which to base eventual withdrawal of American troops.
But the measure itself is mired in disagreement in Iraq, with Sunnis and Kurds differing on the central question of provincial versus central control. Some in Iraq also see the measure as a way for Western corporations to gain control through revenue- sharing provisions.
"Everyone knows that the oil law does not serve the Iraqi people, and that it serves Bush, his supporters and the foreign companies at the expense of the Iraqi people who have been wronged and deprived of their right to their oil despite enduring all difficulties," Hasan Jum'a Awwad, head of the Iraqi Federation of Oil Unions, said in a May 12 letter to Democrats in the U.S. Congress.
There's another view. Iraq's oil industry is in shambles. It needs help, but outside experts keep getting killed. Multinational oil companies, whose shareholders expect a return on investment, could help.
Iraq could go it alone, but getting higher oil output could require hard decisions, including "possible under-investment in other areas of the country's economy," Jaffe's analysis said. Iraq needs up to $10 billion to restore production to pre-war levels, she said, and more than $20 billion - "a major investment program" - to raise output to about 5 million barrels a day, the high end of its historical production levels.
"If it is decided that higher levels of production are desired," Jaffe wrote, "it is inevitable that the potential role of outside in vestors and lenders will loom large."
While that does not mean companies would give their resources and expertise out of charity, Karen Matusic, a spokeswoman for the American Petroleum Institute, says it does not mean privatization, either. She asks why Kucinich would not want to help Iraq, which lacks the tools.
"They don't have the kinds of funds or even technology needed to develop those fields," she said.
Sen. George Voinovich, an Ohio Republican, shares that view.
"That oil is capital," and all sides in Iraq need it, said Voinovich spokesman Chris Paulitz.
Kucinich agrees with the sentiment. But he worries it won't work out that way.
"It's clear," he said, "that the people of Iraq are under enormous pressure to give up their oil."
To reach this Plain Dealer reporter:
skoff@plaind.com, 216-999-4212
Congress on Verge of Approving 'Obscene Attempt' to Steal Iraq Oil
Exposes 'hydrocarbon law' benchmark as privatization WASHINGTON, May 23
/PRNewswire-USNewswire/ --
The U.S. Congress, under intense pressure from the Bush Administration, is on the verge of approving "an obscene attempt to steal the oil resources of Iraq," Democratic Congressman and Presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich said in a nationallytelevised (C-SPAN) speech today.
In an impeccably documented, point-by-point analysis of a little-knownprovision buried in the Iraq war-funding appropriation under considerationby the U.S. House of Representatives, Kucinich challenged other House members to strip the provision from the bill, or, agree with him that theentire bill should be defeated.
The latter option, embodied in Kucinich-sponsored H.R. 1234, would cutoff additional funding for the war and almost immediately begin the processof bringing U.S. troops home. It would also, Kucinich said, send a strongand clear message to the White House: "This war is over, Mr. President."
In an unprecedented, televised hour-long address on the floor of theHouse, Kucinich, the only Presidential candidate who voted against theoriginal war authorization in 2002 and every war-funding measure since,cited scores of unimpeachable sources and documents supporting his position that the current war appropriation might put upwards of 80 percent ofIraq's estimated $21 trillion in oil resources into the hands of international oil and energy corporations.
"I would like to believe that this war wasn't about oil," Kucinich said. "But I know better."
He also noted that his colleagues in the House and the Senate had access to the same "million" sources of information that he did, but failed to recognize the implications of the "hydrocarbon law"benchmark, in part because of intense lobbying and pressure from theAdministration.
The Administration-sponsored language in the current appropriations bill couches Iraq's passage of a "broadly accepted" hydrocarbon law as away of ensuring that oil revenues are shared equitably among the country's regions.
Instead, Kucinich charged, "It's not about sharing revenuesequitably." The real goal, he said, referencing documents that pre-date the2003 invasion of Iraq, was to turn over up to 80 percent of Iraq's oilreserves to multi- national oil corporations. He provided documentation, some dating back to 1999, showing thatinternational oil interests and representatives of the Administration,notably Vice President Dick Cheney, have been strategizing for years about how to open up Iraq's oil industry to exploitation by the world's major oil corporations.
Kucinich provided evidence that, for years, top oil company executives have been advising the U.S. government and the evolving government of Iraq on ways to end Iraq's state-controlled oil industry and to facilitate"foreign investment."
Those powerful executives, Kucinich said, have been coveting Iraq's oil reserves -- the second or third largest in the world --since the country nationalized its oil industry in 1975. In his speech,Kucinich quoted U.S. officials, oil industry leaders and analysts, Iraqi officials, and independent policy and research groups to corroborate his long standing position that
"it's always been about oil." As he closed his impassioned message to House colleagues, Kucinichurged, "Let's take a stand for truth and justice. Let's take a stand for what's right." "The war in Iraq is a stain on American history. Let us not further besmirch our nation by participating in the outrageous exploitation of a nation which is in shambles due to U.S. intervention."
He concluded, "The truth is what I've told this Congress today."
Iraq Oil Law: In Whose Interest? -
Digg this story!E-mail this
Print thisRaed Jarrar, Electronic Iraq, 28 May 2007
A draft of a new oil law is working its way through Iraq's parliamentary process. An earlier draft, in English, was leaked in mid-2006, shocking a number of specialists.
Among them was Erik Leaver of the institute for Policy Studies, who spotted language matching exactly that of a previously leaked seminar paper produced by a private contracting company called
Bearing Point.
The architects of a new Iraq oil law aim to privatize Iraq's oil and open the doors for American companies to sign long term contracts controlling Iraq's oil resources and infrastructure, which is in violation of existing US legislation (No: 109-234) which stipulates that "no funds...may be made available to establish permanent United States military bases in Iraq or to exercise control by the United States over the oil infrastructure or oil resources of Iraq."
Passing a new oil law is not an urgent item on Iraq's agenda. Despite this, a new law is being prepared by the Iraqi separatist leaders, the Bush Administration, US oil companies, and the IMF. US contractors such as Bearing Point have been working with the US State Department to draft the law and the State Department has been pushing for the privatization of Iraq's oil in plans dating back as far as 2002.
More than 60 Iraqi experts and officials signed a petition against the new oil law in March 2007.
One member of the Iraqi parliament participating in the Amman-Jordan conference said, "This law must be rejected as whole, there is no way it can be enhanced or fixed." Many Iraqis and Iraqi parliamentarians agree. Another conference held in Dubai-UAE last month, organized by the Iraqi parliament, included many Iraqi experts and parliamentarians. The majority of the participants thought the law should not be passed for three major reasons:
1. Iraq's unity: The law threatens Iraqi unity by decentralizing the major authorities related to petroleum operations. Many Iraqis view the law as a sort of Iraq separation fund. Many observers say that Iraqi separatist leaders - Sunnis and Shias and Kurds - are using this law to implement their separatist agenda. They want to split Iraq into three or more sectarian/ethnic regions. Iraqi nationalist leaders are fighting against the law because they think this is the most dangerous thing that could happen. Iraqi nationalists - Sunnis and Shias and Kurds - believe in a unified Iraq with a central government that controls natural resources.
2. Iraq's sovereignty: The law undermines Iraq's sovereignty in three ways. First, the Iraqi government cannot control the oil production limits, the action that will stop Iraq's relationship with OPEC. Second, the law does not recognize the Iraqi judicial system as an authority for
resolving disputes. Third, foreign oil companies are represented on the board of the Iraqi Federal Oil and Gas Council. It is unprecedented in Iraq's history that representatives of foreign oil companies sit on its federal oil and gas council approving their own contracts and deciding where oil revenue should be distributed.
Two-thirds of the attending members of the Federal oil and Gas Council can approve any contract even if the terms of that contract contradict existing laws.3. Financial losses:In addition to the main points mentioned above, Iraq will lose hundreds of billions of dollars to foreign oil companies during the next 35 years because the law doesn't give any preferences to local companies due to the unconventional type of contracting this law legalizes called the Production sharing agreements or the exploration and production agreements.
Iraqi leaders in general, separatists or nationalists, don't mind dealing with foreign companies, but many Iraqis are against signing unfair long-term contracts with foreign or local companies. According to the new oil law, the foreign oil companies will have exclusive rights to produce oil from certain fields. They do not have to do any work during the first 10 years, which is called the "exploration period" in the law.
This 10 year period is very convenient for foreign oil companies as they won't be obligated to do any work while Iraq is violent and unstable, but at the same time they will make sure that no one else will drill their oil fields or produce Iraqi oil form them for the next 10 years. When foreign oil companies think the time is appropriate to start working, they can produce oil for up to 25 years with huge profits because they own a certain percent of the oil.
Other oil-rich Middle Eastern countries never agree to these types of contracts. Instead, they hire foreign companies under technical services agreements that do not privatize the oil and give a flat rate to foreign companies.It's only in the interest of the Bush administration, the international oil companies, the International Monetary Fund and World Bank, and the Iraqi separatist leaders to pass this oil law. The new oil law is a direct intervention in Iraq's domestic policies. It will result in nothing more than increasing Iraqi-Iraqi violence and the anti-occupation struggle.
The best oil law is a law that the Iraqis choose after the last US soldier leaves. The best and only policy that will end the violence in Iraq is setting a timetable that will end all the US presence in Iraq completely, without permanent bases, and will give Iraqis the time and space to heal their wounds and govern themselves.Raed Jarrar is Iraq Consultant for the American Friend Service Committee's Middle East Peacebuilding Program.
The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have already cost the American people more than $500 billion, the deaths of 3200 U.S. troops, 25,000 others wounded, and countless Iraqi lives. The total price tag is projected to top $1.2 trillion.With the fourth anniversary of the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq upon us, the Bush administration asks Congress for $93 billion more for the war, over and above the fiscal year 2008 Pentagon request for $484 billion - an 11% increase over last year! The war machine eats well while starving our people of decent housing, quality health care, and education. The Gulf Coast remains a disaster.
Many of us felt shame in the opening days of the invasion as our soldiers were ordered to protect the Oil Ministry, oil fields, refineries, and distribution system while wholesale looting of Iraq’s antiquities unfolded. The message to the Iraqis was clear: “We’ve come for the oil.” There were no weapons of mass destruction. Hussein is gone yet we are still there. Rather than democracy, we brought massive destruction and civil war to Iraq.
Giving credence to Iraqis’ fears, a new Petroleum Law will be presented to the Iraqi Parliament that, if enacted, will put effective control of Iraq’s vast oil resources in the hands of foreign companies. Nationalized since 1975, Iraq’s oil was, before the years of sanctions and the invasion, the foundation for a relatively high standard of living, producing more PhD’s per capita than the U.S. and a health care system prized as the best in the region.
President Bush says the war is not about oil but his actions belie that claim. In the months before the March 2003 invasion, members of the U.S. State Department “Oil and Energy Working Group” met to plan how to open Iraq to international oil companies. As reported by investigative journalist Greg Palast, the oil law now proposed by the Iraqi Council of Ministers is a virtual photocopy of a plan first drafted by U.S. oil industry executives and consultants in Houston long before Iraq was “liberated.”
The proposed Petroleum Law creates a Federal Oil and Gas Council on which would sit representatives of Exxon- Mobil, Shell, BP, etc., whose tasks include approving their own contracts. Instead of Iraqi central government decision-making on oil, the proposal authorizes regional authorities to individually sign contracts with foreign companies, promoting contract bidding wars between regions that could lead to breaking Iraq into three states.
The practice in Iraq - as in other countries with giant reserves - has been that control of oil production rests with public sector oil companies. The role of foreign companies is limited to “service contracts.” A company is contracted to provide a stated service for a limited period - build a refinery, lay a pipeline, drill a field. Decisions on development, distribution, and flow of profits remain with the government. Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Iran run their industries this way.
However, the proposed Petroleum Law provides for “production sharing agreements,” or long-term contracts whereby foreign companies control production, development and sale of the oil for up to 30 years, and reap as much as 70% of the profits. Given the severe weakness of Iraqi institutions, with the country devastated, under military occupation and mired in civil strife, Iraq is unlikely to receive a fair deal. With huge reserves and low production costs, foreign oil companies in Iraq stand to make enormous profits at the expense of the welfare of Iraq’s people and Iraqi sovereignty.
Iraq’s people will not take this looting of their national treasure lying down. Five major Iraqi labor federations, including the Federation of Oil Workers, have condemned the draft law and warn this is a “red-line” issue for Iraq. They recognize the hijack this law, drafted at the behest of the oil cartel, represents.
This oil scenario further stains our international reputation while doing nothing to curb U.S. dependence on foreign oil and our urgent need to develop sustainable energy.
Congress must cut all funding for the war except what is needed for the safe, rapid withdrawal of every U.S. soldier and private contractor, closing of U.S. bases, and meeting our obligation to fund Iraq’s reconstruction. Iraqi sovereignty over their oil and every day life is in the best interests of U.S. working people, starting with our troops. Bring all the troops home now.
Nancy Wohlforth is Secretary-Treasurer of the Office & Professional Employees International Union/AFL-CIO and Co-President of Pride At Work. She is a member of the AFL-CIO General Executive Council. Fred Mason is President of the Maryland and DC AFL-CIO. U.S. Labor Against the War is a national network of more than 150 labor organizations opposed to the war and occupation in Iraq.
Stop the Theft of Iraq's Oil in DC on June 5thIraqi Labor Leaders to Tour United States WHAT: Demonstration against US contractor paid by the US to help write and promote law in Iraq to put most of Iraq's oil under control of multinational oil corporations Join Faleh Abood Umara, General Secretary of the Iraq Federation of Oil Worker, and Hashmeya Muhsin Hussein, President of the Iraq Electrical Utility Workers Union, to protest BearingPoint's and the US government's efforts to take control of Iraq’s greatest natural resource away from the Iraqi people.
WHEN: Tuesday, June 5, 2007, at 5:00 p.m. ET
WHERE: Offices of BearingPoint (80 M St., SE, Washington, D.C. – near Navy Yard Metro) with a march to the U.S. Capitol at 5:30 (3/4 mile)
ADDITIONAL EVENTS IN DC:Public forum with Iraqi Labor LeadersLaunching of US Tour Wednesday, June 6, 2007, 5:30 – 8:30 p.m. ET Busboys and Poets Restaurant 2021 14th Street, NW Washington DC
Public Forum with Iraqi Labor LeadersConcluding US Tour MC’d by Ron Pinchback of WPFW Tuesday, June 26, 2007, 7:00 p.m. ETWestminster Presbyterian Church400 Eye (I) Street, SW– Waterfront Metro (Green Line)Contact: Denice at 202-320-5588 or
denicez@verizon.netBearing Point, Inc. From Source Watch
BearingPoint was formerly KMPG Consulting Inc., the consulting division of the huge accounting firm
KPMG LLP that was brought down in the
Enron/
Arthur Anderson scandal of 2002. On February, 8, 2001, the consulting branch was officially seperated from its parent due to a public offering on the company. When the Enron scandal broke, they changed their name to BearingPoint and subsquently acquired the operations left behind by the deteriorating Arthur Anderson.
[1]Contents
1 Contracts2 Management2.1 Board of Directors3 Articles4 ContactContracts
In July of 2003, BearingPoint was awarded a contract by
USAID worth $79.5 million to
facilitate Iraq's economic recovery with a two-year option worth a total of $240,162,688.
[2][3] Responsibilities in this contract include:
1. Creating Iraq's budget2. Writing business law3. Setting up tax collection4. Laying out trade and customs rules5. Privatize state-owned enterprises by auctioning them off or issuing Iraqis shares in the enterprises.6. Reopen banks and jump-start the private sector by making small loans of $100 to $10,000.7. Wean Iraqis from the U.N. oil-for-food program, the main source of food for 60% of the population.8. Issue a new currency and set exchange rates.
[4]In January 2003 BearingPoint won a $3.95 million contract financed by the
World Bank to aid the Afghanistan government upgrade its accounting system.
[5]In March of 2003, USAID awarded BearingPoint a $39.9 million contract to help rebuild the economy in
Afghanistan.
[6] In November 2005, USAID awarded another contract, this three years and worth $45 million.
[7] The overall worth of contracts in Afghanistan could be worth as much as $350 million.
[8]BearingPoint works with the USAID Banking and Financial Market Reform projects in Serbia and with the National Bank of Serbia to stabilize the financial system.
[9]In October of 2005, BearingPoint was awarded a five year contract by the Navy's Enterprise Program Management Office worth as much as $58 million to support the strategy, design, development and implementation of the EPMO.
[10]In October, 2005, BearingPoint won a $124.7 million contract from USAID to pursue economic and finacial reform in Egypt.
[11]BearingPoint has worked with the U.S.
Department of Health and Human Services to design and build a decision support system.
[12]Management
Harry L. You: CEO
Roderick C. McGeary: Chairman of the Board
David W. Black: Executive VP, General Counsel and Secretary
Judy A. Ethell: Executive VP, Finance and Chief Accounting Officer
Michael D. Lyman: Executive VP and Chief Strategy Officer
Joni Kahn: Executive VP, Technology SOlutions
James Monastero: Executive VP, Chief People Officer
Ron Salluzo: Executive VP and Chief Risk Officer
Connie Weaver: Executive VP and Chief Marketing Officer
Thomas G. Wilde: Executive VP and Chief Information Officer
Christopher Formant: Executive VP, Global Financial Services
Robin S. Lineberger: Executive VP, Global Public Services
Benjamin Loh: Senior VP General Manager APAC
Sarah S. Martin: VP, Corporate Communications
Robin G. Palmer: Executive VP, Asia Pacific and Latin America
Steffen Seeger: Executive VP Europe, Middle East and Africa
Gail P. Steinel: Executive VP Global Commercial Services
Mark Vayda: Executive VP Worldwide SAles, Field Marketing and Alliances
Board of Directors
Roderick C. McGeary: Chairman of the Board
Harry L. You: Chief Executive Officer
Douglas C. Allred: Private investor; Former Senior Vice President, Office of the President, Cisco Systems, Inc.
Betsy Bernard: Private investor; Former President, AT&T
Spencer Fleischer: Vice Chairman, Friedman, Fleischer & Lowe
Wolfgang Kemna: Managing Director of Steeb Anwendungssysteme GmbH, a wholly owned subsidiary of SAP AG
Albert L. Lord: Vice Chairman and CEO, SLM Corp.
Alice M. Rivlin: Senior Fellow,
Brookings Institution; Professor, Public Policy Institute, Georgetown University; Former Vice Chair, Board of Governors, Federal Reserve System
J. Terry Strange: Former Vice Chairman, KPMG LLP and former Global Managing Partner of the Audit Practice of KPMG International
Articles
Stephen Foley,
Shock and Oil: Iraq's Billions and The White House Connection, The Independant, January 15, 2007.
Contact
BearingPoint1676 International Dr. Mc Lean, VA 22102 phone: (703) 747-3000
BearingPoint2001 M St NW, Washington, DC 20036phone: (202) 533-7000
BearingPoint2011 Crystal Dr. Arlington, VA 22202 phone: (703) 685-5470
CINDY SHEEHAN STEPS DOWN: A SAD DAY AND A SAD COMMENTARY ON OUR NATION!
http://news.monstersandcritics.com/usa/news/article_1310599.php/Cindy_Sheehan_quits_peace_movementhttp://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/5/28/12530/1525"Good Riddance Attention Whore"
by
CindySheehanMon May 28, 2007 at 09:57:01 AM PDT
I have endured a lot of smear and hatred since Casey was killed and especially since I became the so-called "Face" of the American anti-war movement. Especially since I renounced any tie I have remaining with the Democratic Party, I have been further trashed on such "liberal blogs" as the Democratic Underground. Being called an "attention whore" and being told "good riddance" are some of the more milder rebukes.
CindySheehan's diaryI have come to some heartbreaking conclusions this Memorial Day Morning. These are not spur of the moment reflections, but things I have been meditating on for about a year now. The conclusions that I have slowly and very reluctantly come to are very heartbreaking to me.
The first conclusion is that I was the darling of the so-called left as long as I limited my protests to George Bush and the Republican Party. Of course, I was slandered and libeled by the right as a "tool" of the Democratic Party. This label was to marginalize me and my message. How could a woman have an original thought, or be working outside of our "two-party" system?
However, when I started to hold the Democratic Party to the same standards that I held the Republican Party, support for my cause started to erode and the "left" started labeling me with the same slurs that the right used. I guess no one paid attention to me when I said that the issue of peace and people dying for no reason is not a matter of "right or left", but "right and wrong."
I am deemed a radical because I believe that partisan politics should be left to the wayside when hundreds of thousands of people are dying for a war based on lies that is supported by Democrats and Republican alike.
It amazes me that people who are sharp on the issues and can zero in like a laser beam on lies, misrepresentations, and political expediency when it comes to one party refuse to recognize it in their own party.
Blind party loyalty is dangerous whatever side it occurs on. People of the world look on us Americans as jokes because we allow our political leaders so much murderous latitude and if we don’t find alternatives to this corrupt "two" party system our Representative Republic will die and be replaced with what we are rapidly descending into with nary a check or balance: a fascist corporate wasteland.
I am demonized because I don’t see party affiliation or nationality when I look at a person, I see that person’s heart. If someone looks, dresses, acts, talks and votes like a Republican, then why do they deserve support just because he/she calls him/herself a Democrat?
I have also reached the conclusion that if I am doing what I am doing because I am an "attention whore" then I really need to be committed. I have invested everything I have into trying to bring peace with justice to a country that wants neither.
If an individual wants both, then normally he/she is not willing to do more than walk in a protest march or sit behind his/her computer criticizing others. I have spent every available cent I got from the money a "grateful" country gave me when they killed my son and every penny that I have received in speaking or book fees since then.
I have sacrificed a 29 year marriage and have traveled for extended periods of time away from Casey’s brother and sisters and my health has suffered and my hospital bills from last summer (when I almost died) are in collection because I have used all my energy trying to stop this country from slaughtering innocent human beings. I have been called every despicable name that small minds can think of and have had my life threatened many times.
The most devastating conclusion that I reached this morning, however, was that Casey did indeed die for nothing.
His precious lifeblood drained out in a country far away from his family who loves him, killed by his own country which is beholden to and run by a war machine that even controls what we think.
I have tried every since he died to make his sacrifice meaningful. Casey died for a country which cares more about who will be the next American Idol than how many people will be killed in the next few months while Democrats and Republicans play politics with human lives.
It is so painful to me to know that I bought into this system for so many years and Casey paid the price for that allegiance. I failed my boy and that hurts the most.
I have also tried to work within a peace movement that often puts personal egos above peace and human life. This group won’t work with that group; he won’t attend an event if she is going to be there; and why does Cindy Sheehan get all the attention anyway? It is hard to work for peace when the very movement that is named after it has so many divisions.
Our brave young men and women in Iraq have been abandoned there indefinitely by their cowardly leaders who move them around like pawns on a chessboard of destruction and the people of Iraq have been doomed to death and fates worse than death by people worried more about elections than people.
However, in five, ten, or fifteen years, our troops will come limping home in another abject defeat and ten or twenty years from then, our children’s children will be seeing their loved ones die for no reason, because their grandparents also bought into this corrupt system.
George Bush will never be impeached because if the Democrats dig too deeply, they may unearth a few skeletons in their own graves and the system will perpetuate itself in perpetuity.
I am going to take whatever I have left and go home. I am going to go home and be a mother to my surviving children and try to regain some of what I have lost.
I will try to maintain and nurture some very positive relationships that I have found in the journey that I was forced into when Casey died and try to repair some of the ones that have fallen apart since I began this single-minded crusade to try and change a paradigm that is now, I am afraid, carved in immovable, unbendable and rigidly mendacious marble.
Camp Casey has served its purpose. It’s for sale. Anyone want to buy five beautiful acres in Crawford , Texas ? I will consider any reasonable offer. I hear George Bush will be moving out soon, too...which makes the property even more valuable.
This is my resignation letter as the "face" of the American anti-war movement. This is not my "Checkers" moment, because I will never give up trying to help people in the world who are harmed by the empire of the good old US of A, but I am finished working in, or outside of this system. This system forcefully resists being helped and eats up the people who try to help it. I am getting out before it totally consumes me or anymore people that I love and the rest of my resources.
Good-bye America ...you are not the country that I love and I finally realized no matter how much I sacrifice, I can’t make you be that country unless you want it.
It’s up to you now.
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As Congress votes to continue the war
Congratulations to everyone in cities and towns throughout Connecticut, New England and the Mid-Atlantic who mobilized for the May 23 Protest Bush Rally in New London, Connecticut. Together, we made it an incredible success! Without your help it could not have been done.
As the New Haven Register and many other news outlets reported, 1,000 antiwar demonstrators gathered at the main gate of the U.S. Coast Guard Academy to protest the visit of George W. Bush and demand an immediate end to the U.S. war in Iraq. CBS television news reported that the antiwar rally was the largest demonstration in New London, CT in over twenty years.
People came by van and car caravan from Hartford, New Haven, New York City, Willimantic, Mystic, Boston, Cape Cod, Westerly, RI, New Paltz, NY, Portland, ME, and many other cities and towns.
The large turnout of the demonstration was particularly impressive given the fact that the demonstration happened at 9:00 am on a weekday.
It was initiated by the ANSWR Coalition (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism). A wide array of social justice and veterans organizations co-sponsored and mobilized. The rally was co-chaired by Eugene Puryear, Coordinator of Youth & Student ANSWER and student at Howard University, and Tahnee Stair, Coordinator of ANSWER-Connecticut.
Veterans and families speak out
The event was noteworthy for the involvement of many veterans, families of soldiers and marines, and active duty military personnel who came to speak out. Speakers included Carlos and Melida Arredondo, whose son Alex was killed in Iraq in 2004; Elliot Adams, President of Veterans for Peace; Ted Goodnight, an Afghanistan War Veteran who served from 2003 to 2004; and Priscilla Lounds, Army veteran and New London activist with the ANSWER Coalition.
Students and faculty attended from Connecticut College, University of Connecticut, Central Connecticut State University, Eastern CSU, Western CSU, Southern CSU, Wesleyan University, Yale University, Northern Virginia Community College, Columbia University, Howard University and elsewhere. A contingent of high school students from The Williams School, located across the street from the USCGA, also attended.
In the weeks and days leading up to the demonstration, on the day of and afterward, the demonstration was covered by a many media outlets, including The New Haven Register, The New London Day, The Hartford Courant, The Norwich Bulletin, The Pacifica Network, NPR, The Connecticut Post, New England CBS and ABC television news broadcasts, and more.
The Protest Bush Rally at the USCGA was part of a nationwide campaign initiated by the ANSWER Coalition called "Turn up the Heat in 2007." Antiwar activists and organizers around the country are joining together to guarantee that wherever and whenever Bush, Cheney, and other government officials and members of Congress step out in public they will be met by antiwar protestors.
West Point - turn up the heat
On Saturday, May 26, there was another demonstration at West Point, New York where Dick Cheney gave the keynote speaker at the graduation ceremony. The protest was sponsored by the ad hoc West Point May 26 Organizing Committee, a coalition of 47 regional and national antiwar organizations.
The two parties of militarism, war and occupation
The Turn up the Heat in 2007 campaign comes at a critical time. The day after his speech at the Coast Guard Academy - at which he labeled the occupation of Iraq as a cornerstone in the so-called "war on terrorism" - Congress again embraced Bush's war.
By an overwhelming margin, the Senate and the House of Representatives voted to give Bush another nearly $95 billion to pay for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Democratic Party leadership agreed to remove the non-binding language for a troop withdrawal timeline that had been included in an earlier bill that Bush vetoed. Seventy-five percent of the people in this country want a troop withdrawal and yet the Senate voted 80 -14 and the House voted 280-142 to give Bush the funds and authority to continue the aggression in Iraq.
New London — So anguished was Carlos Arredondo when three U.S. Marines delivered the news that his son had been killed fighting in Najaf, Iraq, that he took gasoline and a propane torch from his garage and lit himself on fire inside the Marines' government van.
Since that day, Aug. 24, 2004, Arredondo has recovered from his severe burns, become a U.S. citizen and created a mobile memorial to his son, Lance Cpl. Alexander S. Arredondo.
He brought that memorial — and a personal plea for an end to the war in Iraq — to New London Wednesday as more than 1,000 demonstrators converged on the city for President Bush's visit to deliver the commencement address at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy.
“The war in Iraq has been mishandled, and we all pay the price for this. My son paid with his life,” said Arredondo, now of Boston. “It is my duty as an American citizen to share my feelings with or against the government and be there for the ones who cannot speak anymore.”
After speaking to a crowd of at least 250 at a rally at the Soldiers & Sailors Monument organized by the Southeastern Connecticut Peace & Justice Network and Connecticut Opposes the War, Arredondo drove a truck trailing a flag-draped coffin containing some of his son's personal belongings.
The crowd marched behind the truck to the entrance of the academy at Williams Street and Mohegan Avenue, where they joined hundreds more demonstrators — most protesting war or the president himself, some with pro-Bush and pro-troop messages — who stood for hours bearing signs, banners and flags and speaking in a cacophony of competing megaphones and microphones.
New London police officers estimated the crowd at more than 1,000.
The anti-Bush and anti-war demonstrators, affiliated with more than a dozen organizations, including the ANSWER (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism) Coalition, Connecticut Coalition for Peace, Move On, Connecticut Families for Peace, People of Faith CT and the Raging Grannies of Greater Westerly, gathered on one side of Mohegan Avenue. They faced a clearly outnumbered but equally energized crowd of Bush supporters from the groups Gathering of Eagles, Patriot Guard Riders and American Legion Riders across the street.
Those protesting the Bush visit included veterans and civilians, children and seasoned protesters, Connecticut residents, and people from Maine, Massachusetts, New York and Rhode Island.
“There is a difference between patriotism and nationalism, and there is a difference between supporting the troops and supporting a war. It is patriotic to speak out against our country and its wars,” said Ted Goodnight of North Providence. “To promote peace is to benefit all. It is also the greatest honor to all the heroes that have given their lives to our country.”
Goodnight, a member of Veterans For Peace, is a former Army sergeant who chose not to re-enlist after serving for nine months in Afghanistan and two weeks in Mississippi after Hurricane Katrina. While in Afghanistan, he said he questioned why military resources were being diverted to Iraq, a country that did not attack the United States.
Russ Ostlund of Stonington, who served for 14 years as a chief petty officer in the Navy, protested the Bush administration silently by holding an American flag over his right shoulder, a flag with a peace sign over his left shoulder, and lifting a copy of the U.S. Constitution as he looked toward the Bush supporters across the street and, behind them, the path of the presidential motorcade.
Frances Crowe, 88, of Northampton, Mass., protested the Bush administration with the group Code Pink Women For Peace. She wore a pink shirt and a sign — almost as large as she was — around her neck that read, “Arrest and convict the serial killer in Washington.”
Trish Gallagher of Boston, a member of the same group, said she believes the money spent on the war and the military ought to be directed instead to “life-affirming programs.”
A sea of anti-Bush and anti-war signs ranged from hand-scrawled messages like “Support our troops, not our president” and “No blood for more oil” to mass-produced slogans calling for withdrawal from Iraq and impeachment of the president. Some protesters carried American flags turned upside-down or with peace signs instead of stars.
Douglas Wray of Yantic displayed a print of Pablo Picasso's “Guernica,” depicting the suffering and violence of war, around his neck. He said the print hung above his desk at the Naval Submarine Base for 31 years before he retired from his job as an engineer. He said he attended the protest alone, unaffiliated with a group, adding, “I'm just against war.”
Mark Lipman, Tom Page, Susan Bueti and Walter Ducharm, of the group Bostonians for the Overthrow of King George, donned oversized papier-mâché heads of Bush, Donald Rumsfeld, Condoleezza Rice and Vice President Dick Cheney, respectively, and wore jail stripes and chains.
While most protesters Wednesday were showing their dissent over the Iraq war, a small but vocal group of scientists were protesting what they believe would be a greater, disastrous legacy of the Bush administration: its disregard for the environment.
“Every one of us think the Iraq war is wrong,” said Marc Zimmer, a professor at Connecticut College who teaches environmental chemistry. “Our focus is on the science. In 20 or 30 years, when people look back, the biggest mistake of this administration will be that it did not pay enough attention to the environment.”
Zimmer helped organize the march of professors, students and dissenters who met at 9:30 a.m. in front of the F.W. Olin Science Center at Connecticut College. About 75 protesters donned academic robes or wore black, and some carried signs with messages such as “Bush + Exxon = Pseudo Science.”
As the group walked down Williams Street, it was met with jeers from pro-Bush counter-protesters. One man shouted, “Don't forget we fought for you so that you can do this.” Another man screamed, “Hippies!”
Bridget Baird, a professor of math and computer sciences at Connecticut College, said the Bush administration put unqualified people in positions of power. These people, Baird said, twist facts, especially scientific facts.
“The long-term impact is that this affects our credibility in the scientific world,” Baird said. “They ignore the science when it doesn't suit their positions. They discount global warming, stem-cell research and evolution. They ignore the recommendations of scientists.”
Harry Frank, a chemistry professor at the University of Connecticut, said he felt compelled to join the march.
“I'm here because this administration has failed the American public in all of its science policies,” Frank said. “When it comes to global warming, the administration has taken a worry-about-it-tomorrow attitude. We are losing our competitive edge. We are not training the next generation of scientists.”
Ann Burke, a professor of biology at Wesleyan University in Middletown, said she is dismayed at how the Bush administration continues to ignore the recommendations and findings of highly respected scientists.
“This administration has ignored the environment and health of our planet,” she said.
Demonstrations proceeded largely without incident. State police from Troop E responded in the afternoon to a minor scuffle on Williams Street but charged no one, and New London police, a visible presence all day along Williams Street and Mohegan Avenue, reported no protest-related arrests.
e.stoll@theday.com i.larraneta@theday.com
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Democrats.com - The Aggressive... - http://www.democrats.com It took 13 colonies to throw out the last King George. Thirteen state Democratic parties have now passed resolutions demanding impeachment, nine of them since Nancy Pelosi ordered the Democratic Party away from impeachment.
In May 2004, the Nevada Democratic Party led the way, passing a resolution demanding Bush's impeachment. On June 12, 2005, the Wisconsin Democratic Party passed a resolution demanding the impeachment of Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld.
On January 28, 2006, the North Carolina Democratic Party Executive Committee called for the impeachment of Bush, Cheney, and Gonzales, a call echoed by the full state party in June with the focus on Bush alone.
On March 21, 2006, the New Mexico Democratic Party backed impeaching Bush and removing him from office. In April 2006, the Vermont Democratic Party resolved that Bush should face impeachment immediately.
Not a bad start: Nevada, Wisconsin, North Carolina, New Mexico, and Vermont. Of course, Rumsfeld's gone (though not yet prosecuted), and we all know where Gonzales is. At this point in our story, a year ago now, the Republican National Committee made its baseless claim that talk of impeachment would benefit Republicans in the November 2006 elections, and Speaker-to-be Nancy Pelosi immediately announced that impeachment was off the table.
But it wasn't. On May 20, 2006, The Colorado Democratic Party included in its platform a call for Bush and Cheney to be "investigated, censured or if appropriate, impeached." On May 21, 2006, the Alaska Democratic Party passed a resolution "calling for the impeachment of George W. Bush and Richard Cheney; and … the recall of Paul Wolfowitz as President of the World Bank and the dismissal of Donald Rumsfeld as Secretary of Defense."
In June 2006, the Hawaii Democratic Party voted to call for the impeachment of Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, and Gonzales and their prosecution for war crimes. Also in June, Maine called for Bush and Cheney to be impeached, New Hampshire asked for Bush to be impeached, and the full North Carolina Party, as noted above, called for Bush's impeachment. Now we're rolling. Look at this list: Nevada, Wisconsin, North Carolina, New Mexico, Vermont, Colorado, Alaska, Hawaii, Maine, and New Hampshire. That's 10 state Democratic Parties demanding impeachment by June of last year, and seven of them after Pelosi ordered impeachment off the table, and before the elections.
Predictably, these states did very well for the Democrats in the elections, as Nevada did in 2004 as well. And, of course, Wolfowitz is on his way out (though not yet prosecuted). In September 2006, still pre-elections, Washington State's Democratic Party called for Bush and Cheney to be impeached. In March 2007, the Oregon Democratic Party did the same. In April 2007, California called for "appropriate remedies and punishment, including impeachment," for Bush and Cheney.
And in the May 2007, The California Democractic Party Convention passed its' resolution of Impeachment over Speaker Pelopsi's attempts to block it. She failed and is in danger of failing in hwe own 2008 reelection bid. And now Massachusetts has joined the list. On May 19, 2007, the Massachusetts Democratic Party passed a resolution calling on "the U.S. House of Representatives to investigate these charges and if the investigation supports the charges, vote to impeach George W. Bush and Richard B. Cheney." The charges were as follows: "Whereas George W. Bush and Richard B. Cheney have: • Deliberately misled the nation about the threat from Iraq in order to justify a war;
• Condoned the torture of prisoners in violation of the Geneva Convention & US law;
• Approved illegal electronic surveillance of American citizens without a warrant." The majority of these resolutions have never been reported in the media. Therefore, this list is almost certainly incomplete. So are the following tallies: * Cities and towns that have backed impeachment by resolution, public vote, or both: 79.
* Largest cities: Detroit, home of the Chair of the House Judiciary Committee, and San Francisco, home of the Speaker of the House.
* Earliest and most frequent city: Santa Cruz beginning in 2003.
* States where impeachment has been introduced into the legislature at least once: 10 (California, Hawaii, Illinois, Minnesota, Missouri, New Mexico, Texas, Washington, Wisconsin, Vermont).
* State legislative bodies that have voted on impeachment: 3 (Vermont Senate, Vermont House, New Mexico Senate).
* State legislative bodies that have passed impeachment resolutions: 1 (Vermont Senate).
* National political parties backing impeachment: 1 (Green).
* Non-Democratic state political parties backing impeachment: 2 (Vermont Progressives, California Greens).
* Democrats Abroad Chapters backing impeachment: 1.
* Local political party organizations that have backed impeachment: 32.
* Labor unions backing impeachment: 1.
* Page listing all these resolutions:
http://impeachpac.org/resolutions-list* How to make corrections or additions to the list:
http://afterdowningstreet.org/listadditions* Organization helping promote Democratic Party resolutions, including those recently passed in Massachusetts and California:
http://pdamerica.org/* Articles of impeachment introduced against Bush: 3 (by Rep. Cynthia McKinney).
* Articles of impeachment introduced against Cheney: 3 (by Congressman Dennis Kucinich, H Res. 333,
http://www.impeachcheney.org/ ).
* Impeachment Resource Center:
http://afterdowningstreet.org/ resourcecenter
What was the route that led the U.S. to its present fiasco in Iraq and elsewhere? We'll get to impeachment below, but for now let's trace back the thread, starting in 1947. This narrative may seem like old history, but it adds to better understanding of how we got from there then to here now. (Much of the shorthand analysis below is derived from my doctoral dissertation on the "Truman Doctrine.")
America, having helped defeat the then-reining "Axis of Evil" -- the fascist triumverate of Germany, Japan, Italy -- was eager to return to post-war normalcy. U.S. troops returned home from Europe and the Pacific; industry converted from manufacturing war materiel to homes, cars, refrigerators; the U.S. economy was starting to hum. Though some Republican rightwingers were suggesting the U.S. should "finish the job" by "rolling back" Stalin's control of Eastern Europe, there wasn't much stomach for starting another world war so soon after the last one ended.
The British had covertly let the president know that postwar strains on the Empire were taking their toll on that country's economic and political systems. And then, suddenly, the Brits openly informed their American allies that their situation was so tenuous that the U.S. would have to take over the job of propping up the pro-West governments in Turkey and Greece. (Greece had a large, active, armed Communist Party in struggle against the rightwing government.)
BIRTH OF "THE TRUMAN DOCTRINE
President Harry Truman recognized that, given the problems facing the weakened British Empire, the U.S. would indeed have to step in, at least economically, to stabilize the post-war situation. But since Truman hadn't informed the Congress about any of this, suddenly asking them to pony up $400 million for the embattled Greek and Turkish governments was going to be a tough sell.Truman, a Democrat facing a Republican Congress, asked the chair of the Foreign Relations Committee, GOP Senator Arthur Vandenberg, for his support. If you want to get that money out of Congress, Vandenberg said, you'll have to "scare hell out of the country."
In other words, take a minor budget item and blow it out of all proportion -- couched in a struggle against a Soviet-led, worldwide "Red Menace."And thus "The Truman Doctrine," initiated by the president and backed by the rabidly anti-Soviet Republicans, was born. That doctrine basically said that from now on, the U.S. would take action anywhere in the world to combat Communism. Greece/Turkey was the region where the fight would start.Congress did grant Truman the funds for Greece and Turkey, and in so doing the U.S. took a giant step away from its predominantly isolationist stance in world politics. But by agreeing to engage "the enemy" anywhere Communism reared its head, the U.S. locked itself into an unworkable, unrealistic, ultimately self-defeating policy.
It was precisely that ideology and worldview that influenced U.S. actions years later when America took over the colonial war in Vietnam that had defeated the French. As the years went by, the U.S. found itself trapped in an Asian quagmire it never fully comprehended, and resisted the popular clamor to cut their losses and bring the boys home.
ISLAMISTS AS THE NEW "COMMUNISTS
I think you can see where I'm going with this ancient history: "scaring hell out of the country" is not a concept unknown in our current situation.The new "communists," so to speak -- Islamic extremists -- bloodied the nose of their American enemy on September 11, 2001 by slaughtering nearly 3000 in New York and Washington.
Bush vowed to retaliate. Bush and his neo-con advisers, who already had Iraq in their crosshairs long before 9/11, could have chosen to mount a global campaign to locate, isolate and capture/kill those responsible for the attacks; in other words, it could have treated the conspiracy as an international criminal matter. But that would yield Bush and his supporters very little, politically speaking, especially since the rightwing GOP agenda in Congress was going nowhere.In short, Bush&Co. decided they needed to "scare hell out of the country" -- using supposed WMDs controlled by Saddam, allusions to Iraq-delivered nuclear bombs going off in the U.S., etc. -- in order to gain public approval for the extreme actions the Administration was about to take.
A permanent "war against terrorism" would help maintain that level of fright.Americans probably wouldn't go along with the radical re-direction required, said a Project for The New American Century report (major players: Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Cheney), until or unless a "new Pearl Harbor" occurred. Condi Rice, days after 9/11, said the U.S. should seize the "opportunity" offered by 9/11 for the implementation of its agenda. Whether by conscious action or just plain coincidence, the next "Pearl Harbor" definitely had arrived.
THE FORCE OF NATIONALISM
The decision by Bush&Co. to launch a war of choice against Iraq was based on numerous lies and misconceptions, the supposed WMD being just the most obvious. But there was another huge mistake that was barely noticed.And so it's back to my dissertation on the origins of the Cold War. The American government believed that Communism was a monolithic movement all across the globe; there was little or no recognition that "national communism" could even exist: that Yugoslav communism was different from the variety practiced by the Vietnamese, that Greek communism was distinguishable from that in the Soviet Union, that Chinese communism was different from Romania's -- in short, that there were national interests involved that sometimes trumped Communist solidarity.
Seeing the enemy as a monolith during the Cold War meant that policies based on that simplistic interpretation of Communism were often ill-conceived and dangerously wrong-headed; diplomatic interventions targeted to specific national concerns tended not to be attempted, the results of which were disasters of one sort or another.In the case of Vietnam, for example, this short-sighted analysis of Communist nations led to the deaths of more than 54,000 U.S. troops and as many as two million Vietnamese; the U.S. government could not see that Ho Chi Minh was a nationalist communist, and ignored Vietnam's long history of repelling invaders from China, France and elsewhere.
Which brings us to the current Bush Administration and its GOP supporters, who appear to base their policies on the premise that all Islamic jihadists are part of the same monolithic movement.
ONE SIZE DOESN'T FIT ALL
Islamists may be moving in roughly the same direction in some loose, even metaphorical, sense. But the Cheney Bush Administration and its supporters don't speculate that way. In the run-up to the war, and even today, many of them conflate those who carried out the 9/11 attacks with the Iraq of Saddam Hussein, as if they were part of a singular Muslim conspiracy -- even though Saddam regarded Islamists as threats to his dictatorial hold on a secular Iraq and murdered them whenever and wherever he found them.Cheney Bush's limited, one-size-fits-all view of the world translates to judging a jihadist in Iraq as being the same as one in Lebanon or Palestine.
And thus the U.S. has missed innumerable opportunities to split off Iraqi nationalist fighters from the more extremist Islamist jihadists. Similarly, that attitude has prevented the Administration from talking seriously with neighboring Syria and Iran -- who have their own nationalist concerns with regard to Iraq -- about ways to end the war. Seeing the world through monofaceted, ideological glasses puts foreign/military policy on automatic pilot, while manipulating the press and public with frightening stories of supposedly imminent attacks by a grotesque terrorist-monster.Intelligent foreign policy requires a knowledge of history and politics and religion and language, and a whole lot more.
Had the Cheney Bush Administration possessed some of that understanding (or listened to those that did), they might not have blundered their way into the wholesale catastrophe that is its Iraq War and Occupation.
THE WARNINGS IGNORED
For example, they might have listened to their own experts in the State Department and CIA who issued prescient warnings about the likely consequences of attacking and occupying Iraq. They might have heard their European allies advising them not to make a huge mistake by invading that country. They might have been able to hear what 10 million ordinary citizens all around the globe were trying to tell them as they marched and demonstrated against America's about-to-begin war of choice.But Cheney, Bush, Rumsfeld and the rest of the neo-con ideologues were blinded by their technological might, by the fact that the U.S. was the only superpower left standing after the Soviet Union fell apart, and by their feeling they could do whatever they wanted to do in the world since nobody could stop them.
Since the Iraq war was launched on the basis of lies and deceptions (and a load of self-deceptions), and was being carried out by incompetents and greedy exploiters way over their heads, their enterprise was doomed from the start. They were unable to admit their errors in policy and execution, and could not accept the fact that their war had stirred-up a hornet's nest of nationalist rebellion in Iraq and elsewhere in the Greater Middle East. Lacking a "Plan B," they compounded their disastrous war and occupation by doing little but "staying the course" with a failed policy for several years.
THE FAST EVAPORATION OF SUPPORT
Eventually, the barest hints of reality made their way into their illusion-based policy, and, at the last minute -- or, more accurately, way past the last minute -- they admitted to themselves that things weren't going well and so tried for a massive do-over with their "surge" of additional tens of thousands of troops into the fray, with thousands more on their way and the field-generals asking for still more.
That policy of escalating the war didn't work in Vietnam, and it isn't working in Iraq. The die was cast long ago and now the only question is whether Cheney Bush will be able to stretch out the new "surging" escalation of the war through the November 2008 election.But political support for the continued occupation and escalation of the war in Iraq is quickly evaporating. Former commanding generals in intelligence and in the Iraq theatre (such as Generals Odom, Batiste, Eaton, et al.) are openly denouncing the Administration's disastrous war policies, and reportedly serving generals have said they will resign in protest if the escalation is renewed in the Fall absent clearcut signs of political/military progress.
Delegations of Republican member of Congress are denouncing the Cheney Bush war policies to their faces in private White House meetings. The polls continue to reveal the depth of the revulsion nearly two-thirds of Americans have for the Administration's grossly mismanaged war effort in Iraq and the public's desire to end the conflict and bring the troops home.
IMPEACHMENT: THE ONLY LEGAL ALTERNATIVE
Since it doesn't appear that any significant changes in U.S. Iraq policy will be implemented while Cheney Bush rule, and since that policy is endangering America abroad and shredding the Constitution at home, only one legal remedy is available to the Congress and citizenry: impeachment.To do nothing, to let Cheney Bush run out the clock until the next presidential election, is to consign thousands and thousands of additional U.S. troops and Iraqi civilians to death and injury. Do we citizens want that blood on our hands, on our consciences? I don't think so.There are more than enough impeachable offenses ("high crimes and misdemeanors") committed by Cheney and Bush, and their morally corrupt Attorney General, to warrant the immediate convening of a House impeachment panel.
HIGH CRIMES, MISDEMEANORS, MALFEASANCE
The charges would include the lies and deceptions that took this country into an unnecessary war in Iraq, now in its fifth stalemated year; the various manglings of the Constitution that have changed America from a democratic republic to an authoritarian near-dictatorship, thus robbing the citizenry of their rights and legal protections; the refusal to comply with Congressional directives, subpoenas and orders for the production of official documents and records. (Lest we forget, that last one was a key part of the charges voted by the House impeachment panel probing President Nixon's crimes.
(
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/5/11/2175/54578 ) Stonewalling, cover up, corruption, wars of choice, wrecking the Constitution -- these emblems of Cheney Bush rule cannot be permitted to continue for another year-and-a-half, lest the nation be effectively destroyed from within.It's long past time for the Democrats and traditional conservative Republicans to begin to rectify the damage done by this reckless, arrogant, bullying, corrupt, power-mad Administration. To get that process moving, impeachment hearings should commence. Now.
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