Monday, July 28, 2008
I/I/I (Iran, Impeachment and Insanity) & Pelosi Pissings. If You Can Read This Post Without Understanding My Anger; There Is Something Wrong!
With a Congressional having granted an environment of impunity, with almost absolute immunity from prosecution, lack of accountability, and corruption, Bush and Cheney have been authority to take full hold of this country, set aside its laws and the Constitution with the specialized Papal-like unquestioned, unquestionable right to do any damn thing they please in carrying out their campaign of fear and terrorists propaganda.
Almost all Politicians and officials in high office are getting away with breaking the law, as well as their relatives, friends, business associates, lobbyist partners and cohorts fostering the Development of a legitimized culture of corruption sanctioning raping public funds and assets, virtual highway robbery and mass murder including genocide, torture and a litany of other crimes against humanity.
We are a land devoid of integrity and anyone who would argue differently is either a liar, stone cold stupid or an accomplice. Why stand we idle speaking of peaceful Ghandi-like resistance, when we should be in the streets in an absolute public raging strike that shuts down almost everything?
If we simply bitch and hold meetings and sign cyber petitions, hold little rallies; we will continue to be ignored like pesky flies around the shit pile. We have to put a bite into our actions and bring these bastards down!
Gas costs too much so take your Summer Vacation in The Streets…starting today! Why not; the House is amusing itself with a mockery of Non-Impeachment hearings until they can run away in August never to return to the matter!
Afghanistan: Front 1, Iraq: Front 2, Iran: Front 3?, Return To Front 1
Plus Insanity!
Iran Attack In The News (6,131 entries)
And Don’t Forget This! | http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/18/opinion/18morris.html
Who speaks for American Jews?
A new survey of American-Jewish opinion reveals surprising views on US policy toward the Middle East
J Street, the American-Jewish peace lobby, has released its first opinion survey on the level of support among American Jews for territorial compromise and a negotiated solution to the Israeli-Arab conflict. There will be those who may doubt the results, given J Street's left-wing politics. But the poll actually dovetails with surveys conducted by other groups, including the American Jewish Committee.
The information made it to the wide public via the Israeli Web site DEBKAfile.com, which quoted Israel National Radio reporting that a "highly placed security-political" official sustained that the U.S. President would launch Iran’s invasion some when between Nov. 4, the date of the U.S. presidential election, and his last day in office in January 2009 if the diplomatic efforts prove to be unsuccessful in convincing Iran to halt its uranium enrichment program.
The talks held at Geneva between the western powers and Iran ended in deadlock on Saturday. The Bush administration decided to send a senior American official to the table.
Secretary of state for political affairs William J. Burns attended the discussions. It was the first time in three decades when a senior American official attended diplomatic talks between the U.S. and Iran since the two countries broke off diplomatic ties in 1980.
The United States, France, Britain, Germany, Russia and China took part at the talks and tried to convince Iran to accept a compromise. Iran answered with a document that did not address the issue of its nuclear program. Teheran’s diplomats made it clear that they considered the issue nonnegotiable.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article4322508.ece
President George W Bush has told the Israeli government that he may be prepared to approve a future military strike on Iranian nuclear facilities if negotiations with Tehran break down, according to a senior Pentagon official.
Despite the opposition of his own generals and widespread scepticism that America is ready to risk the military, political and economic consequences of an airborne strike on Iran, the president has given an “amber light” to an Israeli plan to attack Iran’s main nuclear sites with long-range bombing sorties, the official told The Sunday Times.
“Amber means get on with your preparations, stand by for immediate attack and tell us when you’re ready,” the official said. But the Israelis have also been told that they can expect no help from American forces and will not be able to use US military bases in Iraq for logistical support.
“It’s really all down to the Israelis,” the Pentagon official added. “This administration will not attack Iran. This has already been decided. But the president is really preoccupied with the nuclear threat against Israel and I know he doesn’t believe that anything but force will deter Iran.”
http://armscontrolcenter.org/policy/iran
For the past several years, Iran has been under intense scrutiny from the international community over its nuclear program. While Iran's intentions are unclear, its failure to declare all nuclear facilities and materials in a timely fashion has led to increased concerns that Iran intends to develop nuclear weapons.
Most Iran specialists, including nationally recognized experts at the Center, believe that the main factor driving Iran's interest in nuclear technology - be it civilian or military - is national pride. Unfortunately, United States policy has been to publicly threaten and insult Iran while taking provocative actions such as adopting a policy of regime change, attempting to increase unilateral sanctions, deploying additional military assets in the region, and arresting Iranian representatives in Iraq.
Such policies are counterproductive, strengthening Iranian hardliners and weakening the position of anti-nuclear and pro-democracy elements in Iran.
Iran does not pose an imminent threat to the U.S. and is unlikely to do so for years, perhaps as long as a decade according to American intelligence estimates. There are numerous challenges - including mastering the nuclear fuel cycle - on the road to developing a nuclear weapon. Building a nuclear warhead and placing it on a suitable delivery vehicle, a process sometimes referred to as "weaponization," is a difficult endeavor requiring technologies Iran has not even started working on.
There is ample time for the United States, Iran, the IAEA, and other interested parties to resolve the nuclear dispute through diplomacy. Military force should not be contemplated at this time and should be considered in the future only if it meets basic requirements - including support from Congress and the U.N. - and is judged to be a net advantage to U.S. interests.
http://www.globes.co.il/serveen/globes/DocView.asp?did=1000365524&fid=1725
"Time": Israel attack on Iran after vote, if at all.
The magazine claims Israel seeks to avoid harming the chances of Republican presidential candidate John McCain of being elected.
Ran Dagoni, Washington 27 Jul 08 11:12
The chances of an Israeli attack on Iran's nuclear installations is slim, and any military action will only be taken after the US presidential election in November, to avoid harming the chances of Republican candidate Senator John McCain of being elected, writes "Time" magazine.
In its article entitled "Israel's debate over an Iran strike," "Time" says that a former senior Mossad officer told it that "Israel is mindful that an air strike on Iran would jolt the US presidential election, probably rebounding badly on Republican contender, Senator John McCain." Time adds, "Sources say that Israel sees a narrow "window of opportunity" for military action opening up between November and the swearing-in of the new American president next January. 'No Israel leader wants to be blamed for destroying the Republican chances,' says the former Mossad officer."
http://thepost.com.pk/OpinionNews.aspx?dtlid=174596&catid=11
Recently, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said he was interested in direct talks with the US. He also said Iran was interested in an idea being floated in Washington to open a US diplomatic mission in Tehran for the first time since the revolution. In intriguing comments in a television interview, Ahmadinejad said he expected "something may happen soon" in US-Iranian relations. Like Bush, he too did not take the world into confidence by revealing the hidden facts.
Any realistic solution to the Iranian nuclear crisis would involve active US engagement at the diplomatic level. Both sides have made it abundantly clear that they want to talk, but neither is very good at listening. In the past, Washington and Tehran have been like two star-crossed lovers. Every time one makes an advance, the other turns away. After the July show of missile preparedness by Iran, now there are growing signs that both Iran and the US want to do some serious talk about the nuclear crisis. Maybe the missile test was a show of strength before the opening of talks.
True, it looks like a major shift of the US policy towards Iran by agreeing to send the Under Secretary of State, William Burns, to Geneva. The Bush administration had previously ruled out joining the nuclear talks until Iran suspended uranium enrichment, so sending an envoy to Geneva is a big turnaround.
But is there a real effort for reconciliation? Why is this? The US presidential election is in less than four months away and Bush will leave office before the end of January. Time is running out for President George Bush. By opening the door to Tehran, he could do his successor an enormous favor. It is a political gamble he can take at a relatively little cost, whereas the incoming president might find it a step too far or simply be too busy to engage on the issue.
Conversely, the prospect of President Barack Obama might provoke Israel into pre-emptive action. The dangers have been evident in the recent sabre-rattling from both sides in recent weeks.
A few die-hard neo-Cons reason why the Islamic Republic is suddenly open to compromise. They say that Israel's recent military rehearsal for an attack on Iran was a wake-up call. The fact that Israel is now talking with Syria, Hezbollah, and the Palestinians must also be worrying Tehran. Already, Tehran has found that it cannot rely on Russia or China to block sanctions in the UN Security Council.
The government might be facing the prospect of serious isolation. Also, the government is under pressure from sanctions. Inflation in food prices here is approaching 50 percent. In Tehran, there are daily power cuts, water shortages, and huge queues at the petrol stations. Even the ever-resilient Ahmadinejad may be realizing that not all his policies are working entirely.
There is no clear-cut evidence to show the US has indeed changed or at least is changing, but on the contrary, the latest statement of Rice conforms that US remains as arrogant as ever and there is no real threat for the US to be pragmatic or persuasive in approach. Nothing could be predicted about US intentions, unless it really seeks peace with the Islamic nations. Iran would be extremely cautious now about its enemies since the US might go for a quick attack during the month of Ramadan.
The prospect of war over Iran's nuclear plans seemed to recede in mid-July 2008 after a marked change in United States attitudes to the country. This was signalled by the decision to hold direct talks with the Islamic Republic for the first time since the revolution of 1979 and the subsequent hostage crisis that did so much to embitter relations between the two countries. The outcome of the discussions held in Geneva on 19 July was disappointing to western hopes of concessions from Iran over its uranium-enrichment plans, but the fact of the meeting has been hailed as a positive step that diminishes what had seemed to be the escalating risk of armed confrontation.
Between this hope and a stony reality, however, falls a shadow. For even if the momentum in Washington has moved away from the planning for a military strike against Tehran's nuclear facilities, the option of an attack by Israel is very much alive. In the complex strategic calculations of the three main state actors, therefore, the mild and provisional rapprochement between the US and Iran is only one counter that in itself does not eliminate the possibility of war (see "Israel, the United States and Iran: the tipping-point", 13 March 2008).
A Static Momentum
The shift in Washington's approach to Iran seems to have been the result of pressure from two branches of government: the state department, where influential policy-makers have sought to revive a diplomatic path over Iran; and the defence department, where there has been real concern over the possible consequences of a military confrontation. This has been voiced by a number of senior military commanders, most recently Admiral Mike Mullen, chair of the joint chiefs-of-staff (see "Top US admiral says strike on Iran means turmoil", Reuters, 20 July 2008). Mullen has conveyed a pithy scepticism about the fallout of war with Iran ("This is a very unstable part of the world and I don't need it to be more unstable") with a sharp awareness of the limits imposed by the US's own military overstretch ("Right now I'm fighting two wars and I don't need a third one"). At the same time, he is emphatic that Iran has to be "deterred" in its ostensible ambition of achieving a nuclear-weapon capacity (see "U.S. admiral calls for global pressure on Iran", Xinhua, 21 July 2008)
This element of ambiguity was reflected too at the 19 July meeting (which included representatives from China, Russia, France, Britain, and Germany). Although the US was represented by under-secretary of state William Burns, the highest ranking US official to be in dialogue with Iran for many years, the sense of a process almost immediately stalled was palpable. The secretary of state Condoleezza Rice was critical of the Iranian delegation immediately after the meeting (see Matthew Lee, "U.S. says Iran not serious at nuclear talks", Baltimore Sun, 21 July 2008). Members of other delegations that took part were scornful of Iran's preparation and input, including the paper distributed at the meeting which outlined Tehran's core positions (see Elaine Sciolino, "Iran offers 2 pages and no ground in nuclear talks", International Herald Tribune, 22 July 2008).
A Vengeful Disillusion
The Geneva dialogue may nonetheless have confirmed that the balance within the George W Bush administration has moved away from planning for war with Iran. This would be a cruel disappointment to those inside (Vice-president Dick Cheney and his team) and outside (neo-conservative and other hawkish voices) the administration who have long sought to match action against Iran to the "axis of evil" rhetoric.
Indeed, the reaction of the analysts who have promoted a hardline agenda on Iran to Washington's change of approach is instructive. For many, it has evidently been a bad dream which has confirmed their sourness towards Condoleezza Rice and the state department but also introduced a new note of disillusioned disgust against the George W Bush administration as a whole.
The hardliner’s unsettled mood is compounded by Barack Obama's lead in the opinion polls, amid a more general positive coverage of the Democratic candidate's campaign reflected in the blanket coverage of his overseas tour to Afghanistan, the Middle East and western Europe (see Dan Balz, "Obama Going Abroad With World Watching", Washington Post, 19 July 2008).
In addition, the agreement of Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki with Obama's call for a major US troop withdrawal from Iraq is a serious embarrassment for the Republican candidate, John McCain, who has been making much of Obama's inexperience in foreign affairs (see Jim Lobe, "McCain knee-capped by Maliki", Asia Times, 23 July 2008). The widespread frustration of Republicans and conservatives at the Obama summer festival is reinforced by the apparent media sidelining of the campaign of the Republican candidate, John McCain (see Linda Feldmann, "McCain camp cries foul", Christian Science Monitor, 24 July 2008).
Yet the neocon focus on Iran remains central, with a rising sense of aggravation that Iran has been rewarded with serious diplomatic attention from Washington even though it has made no effort (and has expressed no intention) to cease its uranium-enrichment activities. Such a cessation had long been a pre-requisite for any change in the US's attitude; its abandonment opens the administration to that toxic charge: appeasement, only one step from betrayal.
Michael Rubin of the American Enterprise Institute described Bush's reversal as "diplomatic malpractice on a Carter-esque level that is breathing new life into a failing regime" (see Michael Rubin, "Now Bush is Appeasing Iran", Wall Street Journal, 21 July 2008). Indeed, Rubin contends: "As Ahmadinejad begins his re-election campaign, he can say he has successfully brought Washington to its knees through blunt defiance, murder of US troops, and Holocaust denial."
This is strong stuff, but others are even harsher on the Bush administration. Stephen F Hayes, a regular commentator in the neocon journal the Weekly Standard, makes a direct connection with the Bush about-turn on North Korea (which included, on 26 June 2008, removing Pyongyang from the United States's list of state sponsors of terrorism). After North Korea's nuclear test in October 2006, Bush initially rejected calls for negotiations; yet in a matter of weeks he allowed the state department's Christopher R Hill to meet a North Korean delegation, with a further meeting in Berlin in early 2007. This rapprochement notwithstanding, Stephen F Hayes notes that North Korea assisted Syria in developing the nuclear reactor that was (on 6 September 2007) to be bombed by Israel.
Hayes goes on to argue: (More)
U.S. needs more knowledge to deal with Iran | Bernd Debusmann Reuters Published: July 28, 2008
WASHINGTON: 'Iran is not in a revolutionary or even prerevolutionary stage." That was the assessment of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency in August 1978, at a time when Iran's ruler was America's closest ally in the Middle East. The Defense Intelligence Agency, a month later, predicted that the shah of Iran "is expected to remain actively involved in power over the next 10 years."
Famous last words. The shah fled into exile four months later, forced out by increasingly violent demonstrations against his autocratic rule. An estimated six million people massed in Tehran to greet the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the elderly cleric who had rallied opposition against the shah, on his triumphant return from exile in February 1979.
Later that year, Iranian students stormed the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, beginning a 444-day crisis in which 52 Americans were held hostage. Washington broke off diplomatic relations in 1980, and they have yet to be restored.
If U.S. intelligence on Iran was bad in the 1970s, when the United States had a sizable embassy and officials could move freely around the country, how is it now, after 28 years without official contacts and no American presence on the ground? Just as bad? Very bad? Barely there?
To hear Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice tell it: You "never know what you don't know, particularly in a fairly opaque place like Iran. And you would be surprised what it does to both your diplomatic and intelligence capability to not be in the country." She added, "We don't really have very good veracity or a feel for the place."
Burns ranks third in the State Department's hierarchy, and his presence was a policy reversal after years of shunning direct contact with Iran, a country President George W. Bush had branded part of an "axis of evil."
Did Washington expect that the attendance of Burns, without a change in the U.S. and Iranian positions, would lead to a breakthrough? Or was there a hidden agenda? The word most widely used to describe Iran's multilayered power structure is "opaque." But the Bush administration is also no model of openness and transparency, which is why there is speculation on what prompted the sending of Burns.
Was it a display of U.S. flexibility to highlight Iranian rigidity and prepare the ground for a military strike? A bid to keep the sextet of countries involved in the talks from backing off tougher sanctions? A way for Rice to polish her credentials after 7½ years of limited achievements in two Bush administrations?
Bush Must Be Stopped Before Starting War With Iran
An attack on Iran by either the U.S. or Israel and the ensuing regional war will propel us into the Armageddon-type scenario in the Middle East relished by the lunatic fringes of the radical Christian right. And so, we barrel mindlessly toward a Dr. Strangelove self-immolation. No one will be able to say we did not go out with a spectacular show of firepower, gore and death. Our European and Middle Eastern allies, who are numb with consternation over our death spiral, are frantically trying to reach out to Tehran diplomatically.
The instant we attack Iran, oil prices will double, perhaps triple. This price increase will devastate the U.S. economy. The ensuing retaliatory strikes by Iran on Israel, as well as on U.S. military installations in Iraq, will leave hundreds, maybe thousands, dead. The Shiites in the region, from Saudi Arabia to Pakistan, will see an attack on Iran as a war against Shiism. They will turn with rage and violence on us and our allies. Hezbollah will renew attacks on northern Israel, while Hamas increases its attacks in southern Israel. And the localized war in Iraq will become a long, messy and protracted regional war that, by the time it is done, will most likely end the American empire and leave in its wake mounds of corpses and smoldering ruins.
The Israeli leadership, like the Bush White House, is increasingly bellicose and threatening. The Israeli prime minister, after a recent 90-minute meeting with Bush in the White House, said the two leaders were of one mind. "We reached agreement on the need to take care of the Iranian threat," Ehud Olmert said. "I left with a lot less questions marks (than) I had entered with regarding the means, the timetable restrictions and American resoluteness to deal with the problem. George Bush understands the severity of the Iranian threat and the need to vanquish it and intends to act on the matter before the end of his term in the White
Opinion: War With Iran Will Be A Cakewalk? Think Again
Record-breaking gasoline and diesel prices, more debt and rising inflation, the U.S. military being overstretched and Russia's arming of Iran are four practical reasons why the U.S. shouldn't go into Iran.
It seems that we might launch an invasion of Iran prior to the November elections or we will agree or cooperate with Israel attacking the Islamist state. Either way, be prepared to pay $10 to $12 per gallon of gasoline or more and see body bags of dead soldiers returning to the United States. Not a nice scenario to contemplate!
As you may remember, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert had a meeting with President Bush on June 4. According to what the Prime Minister said after the meeting with reporters, it appears that everything is ready for an invasion of some type. One way or another, the Iranian threat will be taken care of in a timely fashion.
Olmert had this to say after his meeting with Bush: ''George Bush understands the severity of the Iranian threat and the need to vanquish it, and intends to act on the matter before the end of his term in the White House.'' Israel has conducted a drill over the eastern Mediterranean with over 100 warplanes since Olmert's meeting with Bush. Israeli Air Force jets have also carried out flights over Jordan.
Russia has been supplying Iran with missiles. They have been test-firing Shahab missiles. American Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice stated on July 10 that the United States will defend the interests of their allies in the region.
The Democrat-controlled Congress issued House Concurrent Resolution 362 which was introduced on May 22, that urges the president to stop Iran from importing oil. The legislation has gained 238 cosponsors. There is a similar blockade resolution in the Senate entitled S. Res. 580 that has 35 cosponsors.
Here are some reasons why American citizens should oppose this folly of an invasion into Iran: Record-breaking gasoline and diesel prices: ''OPEC Secretary-General Abdalla Salem El-Badri said recently that in the event of conflict with Iran,''prices would go unlimited...I can't give you a number.''
More debt and skyrocketing inflation: Hundreds of billions of dollars have been spent fighting the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Government borrowing will increase if we get involved in Iran and more dollars will be printed. They will depreciate in value.
Overloaded Military: In 2004, the now deceased Col. David Hackworth said that the Army is trying to do the work of 14 divisions when they have 10 that are under-manned. The current Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Admiral Mike Mullen said that opening up a third front right now would be extremely stressful on the U.S. military.
Possible military disaster with Russian arms: Russia has supplied Iran with Tor-M1 anti-aircraft and S-300 anti-aircraft missile systems. These pose a serious threat to our pilots. ''More worrisome still are reports that Russia has provided Iran with the super-fast Sunburn anti-ship missiles, against which our Navy has dubiously effective countermeasures.''
If Israel attacks Iran or the United States attacks Iran, there is the strong potential for an unprecedented Muslim uprising in the Middle East. There are many Muslims in the United States that could launch another terrorist attack within our own country if Iran is attacked. Do we really want to take that chance?
The Jerusalem Post
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1215331116435&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
Recent talks the United States held with Iran are aimed at creating legitimacy for a potential attack against Iranian nuclear facilities, defense officials speculated on Sunday as Defense Minister Ehud Barak headed to Washington for talks with senior administration officials.
Barak will travel to Washington and New York and will hold talks with his counterpart Robert Gates, Vice President Dick Cheney, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Admiral Michael Mullen, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley.
Officials said it was likely that President George W. Bush would join the meeting between Barak and Hadley. On Wednesday, Barak will fly to New York for a brief meeting with United Nations Secretary-General Ban-Ki Moon.
Barak's departure to the US came as IDF Chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi returned to Israel on Sunday from a week-long visit to the US as Mullen's guest. Ashkenazi held talks with Cheney, Hadley and other senior officials with a focus on the Iranian nuclear program.
"There is a lot of strategic thinking concerning Iran going on right now but no one has yet to make a decision what to do," said a top IDF officer, involved in the dialogue between Israel and the US. "We are still far away from the point where military officers are poring over maps together planning an operation."
The move led to reports that the US was changing its isolation tactic vis-Ã -vis Iran but Israeli defense officials speculated Sunday that the move was really a ploy to buy international support in the event that Bush decides to attack Iran in his last months in office.
"This way they will be able to say they tried everything," one official speculated. "This increases America's chances of gaining more public support domestically as well as the support of European nations which are today opposed to military action."
A Jerusalem-based journalist says the overwhelming sentiment in Israel right now is that Barack Obama will be the next president of the United States, and that the Jewish state will have to take care of the Iranian nuclear problem on its own.
Aaron Klein, Jerusalem bureau chief for WorldNetDaily, covered Senator Obama's recent visit to the Holy City. Even before Obama's arrival in Israel, says Klein, the people there had already made up their minds about the inevitability of Obama becoming president. So the clock may already be ticking for a unilateral Israeli strike against Iran's nuclear program, he says.
"In Israel, there already is an assumption that Obama is going to win," the journalist states. "And then Israel knows that the window to do anything about it [Iran] would have to be before...the November elections or before the next president, which Israel does assume to be Barack Obama, is installed in January."
On the other hand, Klein does not think it would be wise for Israel to attack Iran as long as Ehud Olmert is prime minister there. "[T]he man couldn't handle a war against a few thousand guerrilla troops in Lebanon in 2006 [and] he has bungled every Israeli Defense Force operation since he's been in office," says the Middle East observer.
Klein admits he is concerned about a scenario in which Barack Obama is the U.S. president at the same time Ehud Olmert is prime minister of Israel.
Will America's Jews pick the next president?
In secret note, Olmert says Bush has ditched Israel on Iran threat
CNN Anchor Slams Impeachment As Kabuki Theatre. FIRE HER!!
By Linda Milazzo
However, CNN chose a less balanced and more ideological path for the show when it brought on conservative Bush supporter, Campbell Brown, as Election Center's new anchor. If Brown's conservative leanings weren't all that obvious in the ...
AfterDowningStreet.org - Impeach... - http://www.afterdowningstreet.org
Impeachment Hearings
Pelosi’s bribery falls flat
Online Journal - Silver Springs,FL,USA
Further, Nancy, before your coronation, you said repeatedly that impeachment would be on the table. Repeatedly. And, then, when you were positioned at the ...
Is hearing to impeach Bush merely 'anger management'?
They lined up by the hundreds to be a witness to history at the Judiciary Committee's unofficial impeachment hearings of George W. Bush today.
It wasn't called that of course. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-S.F.) had balked at a real impeachment hearing. Something about fearing a voter backlash from the public, already in a bad mood about Congress' inaction on core issues.
But today's hearing by the House Judiciary Committee -- billed as an inquiry to the Bush administration's use of executive power -- was ripe with opportunity for those who want to evict the president from office.
The ‘Not Impeachment’ Hearings
By kegbot1
When Cindy Sheehan shouted, “Thank you Vince”, Conyers reminded her that it was forbidden to express any demonstrations of approval or disapproval of the proceedings. An angry and bemused Sheehan was already on her way out of the door ...
Bad American - http://badamerican.wordpress.com
Law and Disorder July 28, 2008
By admin
Now, in this late stage of the Bush/Cheney administration, Ohio Congressman Dennis Kucinich is pushing for impeachment. Last week the house voted 238 to 180 to send a single article of impeachment to the Judiciary Committee. ...Law and Disorder Radio - http://lawanddisorder.org
Count Down To Accountability - Bush, Cheney Indictments
How Should the Next President Deal with the Bush White House’s Crimes?
A debate between two progressive legal experts on the FISA bill and the idea of prosecuting of Bush and White House officials for criminal acts.
Obama agreed that, if elected, he would have his Attorney General initiate an investigation into whether Bush and other senior officials violated criminal statutes and thus deserved to face prosecution.
“What I would want to do is to have my Justice Department and my Attorney General immediately review the
information that’s already there and to find out are there inquiries that need to be pursued,” Obama told journalist Will Bunch.
http://truthhugger.com/2008/07/27/count-down-to-accountability-bush-cheney-indictments
http://representativepress.blogspot.com
It's not even an impeachment hearing! Conyers screws us AGAIN
Ask Nancy Pelosi about Impeachment in New York July 29
Tomgram: Chalmers Johnson, Warning: Mercenaries at Work
[Note for TomDispatch readers: Part 2 of Pepe Escobar's RealNews.com TomDispatch interview is now posted. In it, Nick Turse discusses his new book The Complex: How the Military Invades Our Everyday Lives about which Chalmers Johnson has said: "Americans who still think they can free themselves from the clutches of the military-industrial complex need to read this book… Nick Turse has produced a brilliant exposé of the Pentagon's pervasive influence in our lives." To read, Part 1 of the interview, with Tom Engelhardt, click here.]
To offer a bit of context for Chalmers Johnson's latest post on the privatization of U.S. intelligence, it's important to know just how lucrative that intelligence "business" has become. According to the latest estimate, the cumulative 2009 intelligence budget for the 16 agencies in the U.S. Intelligence Community will be more than $55 billion. However, it's possible that the real figure in the deeply classified budget may soar over $66 billion, which would mean that the U.S. budget for spooks has more than doubled in less than a decade. And as Robert Dreyfuss points out at his invaluable blog at the Nation, even more spectacularly (and wastefully), much of that money will! end up in the hands of the "private contractors" who, by now, make up a mini intelligence-industrial complex of their own.
Chalmers Johnson, who once consulted for the CIA and more recently, in his book Nemesis: The Last Days of the American Republic, the third volume of his Blowback Trilogy, called for the Agency to be shut down, knows a thing or two about the world of American intelligence. As he has written, "An incompetent or unscrupulous intelligence agency can be as great a threat to national security as not having one at all." Now consider, with Johnson, just how incompetent and unscrupulous a thoroughly privatized intelligence "community" can turn out to be. Tom
The Military-Industrial Complex
It's Much Later Than You Think
By Chalmers Johnson
Most Americans have a rough idea what the term "military-industrial complex" means when they come across it in a newspaper or hear a politician mention it. President Dwight D. Eisenhower introduced the idea to the public in his farewell address of January 17, 1961. "Our military organization today bears little relation to that known by any of my predecessors in peacetime," he said, "or indeed by the fighting men of World War II and Korea… We have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions… We must not fail to comprehend its grave implications… We must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex."
Although Eisenhower's reference to the military-industrial complex is, by now, well-known, his warning against its "unwarranted influence" has, I believe, largely been ignored. Since 1961, there has been too little serious study of, or discussion of, the origins of the military-industrial complex, how it has changed over time, how governmental secrecy has hidden it from oversight by members of Congress or attentive citizens, and how it degrades our Constitutional structure of checks and balances.
From its origins in the early 1940s, when President Franklin Delano Roosevelt was building up his "arsenal of democracy," down to the present moment, public opinion has usually assumed that it involved more or less equitable relations -- often termed a "partnership" -- between the high command and civilian overlords of the United States military and privately-owned, for-profit manufacturing and service enterprises. Unfortunately, the truth of the matter is that, from the time they first emerged, these relations were never equitable.
Click here to read more of this dispatch.
ACLU Obtains Key Memos Authorizing CIA Torture Methods
Saturday, July 26th, 2008
Memo Instructed CIA To Document Both Torture Techniques And Agents Participating In Interrogations NEW YORK – The American Civil Liberties Union today obtained three redacted documents related to the Bush administration's brutal interrogation policies, including a previously withheld Justice Department memo authorizing the CIA's use ...
Iraq war’s total cost nearing Vietnam’s price tag
Saturday, July 26th, 2008
The total cost of the Iraq war is approaching the Vietnam War's expense, a congressional report estimates, while spending for military operations after 9/11 has exceeded it. The new report by the Congressional Research Service estimates the U.S. has spent $648 billion on Iraq war operations, ...
Exposing Bush’s historic abuse of power
Thursday, July 24th, 2008
The last several years have brought a parade of dark revelations about the George W. Bush administration, from the manipulation of intelligence to torture to extrajudicial spying inside the United States. But there are growing indications that these known abuses of power may only be ...
Gitmo ‘Justice’ for US Citizens?
Thursday, July 24th, 2008
By Robert Parry | A conservative-dominated U.S. Appeals Court has opened the door for President George W. Bush or a successor to throw American citizens - as well as non-citizens - into a legal black hole by designating ...
Driver told FBI agents U.S. could have killed bin Laden
Saturday, July 26th, 2008
By Carol Rosenberg | GUANTANAMO BAY NAVY BASE, Cuba — In his seventh of month of U.S. captivity, Osama bin Laden's driver told a pair of FBI agents that it was America's fault that the al Qaida leader was alive. The message was, ''You ...
Time To Exit The Empire Game
Saturday, July 26th, 2008
By Patrick J. Buchanan | As any military historian will testify, among the most difficult of maneuvers is the strategic retreat. Napoleon's retreat from Moscow, Lee's retreat to Appomattox and MacArthur's retreat from the Yalu come to mind. The British Empire abandoned India in 1947 ...
Former Gitmo Prosecutor Says Trials Rigged
Thursday, July 24th, 2008
By Jeff Stein | Air Force Col. Morris D. Davis, who resigned last year after two years as chief prosecutor at Guantanamo, today described the military commissions system as fatally "tainted" by politics and designed to produce guilty verdicts, no matter what the costs. The possibility ...
US Lawyer Seeks To Sue US Over Iran Threats
Thursday, July 24th, 2008
An American lawyer has offered to represent Iran in an international lawsuit against Israel and his own government in an effort to stop Washington and Tel Aviv from initiating further sanctions against Tehran. Francis A. Boyle says following Washington's latest ultimatum to Tehran to freeze uranium ...
Court Confirms President’s Dictatorial Powers
Tuesday, July 22nd, 2008
By Andy Worthington | Wake up, America! On July 15, the Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit ruled by 5 votes to 4 in the case of Al-Marri v. Pucciarelli (PDF) that the president can arrest US citizens and legal residents inside the United States and imprison them indefinitely, without charge or trial, based solely on his assertion that they are "enemy combatants." Have a little ...
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The US will not prosecute Bush
Saturday, July 19th, 2008
Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld will never be tried for war crimes in the US because the country lacks a consensus on torture The US will not prosecute Bush By John McQuaid, guardian.co.uk The evidence is mounting that top US officials - including President George Bush, vice-president Dick Cheney and former defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld - committed war crimes by authorising the use of "enhanced interrogation techniques" - ie torture. The war ...
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Antiwar Protesters Added to Database of Terrorist Suspects
Saturday, July 19th, 2008
Undercover Maryland state troopers infiltrated three groups advocating peace and protesting the death penalty — attending meetings and sending reports on their activities to U.S. intelligence and military agencies, according to documents released Thursday. The documents show the activities occurred from at least March 2005 to May 2006 and that officers used false names, which the documents referred to as "covert identities" - to open e-mail accounts to ...
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Bush can hold terrorist suspect indefinitely: US court
Saturday, July 19th, 2008
A federal appeals court on Tuesday ruled that President George W. Bush has the power to keep a terrorist suspect jailed indefinitely, but that the detainee has the right to challenge his detention as an "enemy combatant." The 4th US Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Virginia, took up the case of Ali Al-Marri, the only "war on terror" suspect arrested on US soil, and reversed a June 2007 decision by ...
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Get spied on without doing anything wrong
Monday, July 14th, 2008
By D. PARVAZ | If you're wondering how desperate of a pickle we're in in our "war on terror," check out the following item: The Department of Justice is mulling over whether to let the FBI investigate U.S. citizens and legal residents without evidence of wrongdoing. Instead, investigators would be allowed to use racial profiling, targeting, according to The Associated Press, "Muslim, Arabs or other racial and ethnic ...
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Does Iran's President Want Israel Wiped Off The Map? - Does He Deny The Holocaust
If Iran is Attacking It Might Really be Israel
By Philip Giraldi
There are a number of possible “false flag” scenarios in which the Israelis could insert a commando team in the Persian Gulf or use some of their people inside Iraq to stage an incident that they will make to look Iranian, either by employing Iranian weapons or by leaving a communications footprint that points to Tehran’s involvement. Continue
Continued…
The Bottom Feeders
The 25 Most Vicious Iraq War Profiteers: The Iraq war is many things to different people. It is called a strategic blunder and a monstrous injustice and sometimes even a patriotic mission, much to the chagrin of rational human beings. For many big companies, however, the war is something far different: a lucrative cash-cow.
Why Bush Impeachment Is Necessary
By Ed Ciaccio
Conyers, Pelosi, and all members of Congress who oppose the impeachment of George W. Bush are betraying the oath they all swore when they took office and should be condemned for this betrayal. Following are the reasons why the impeachment of George W. Bush is necessary. Continue
Members of Congress who oppose this necessary impeachment of George W. Bush, required by our Constitution for committing so many serious criminal offenses, are not only betraying their oath of office, but also their responsibility to the citizens of the United States.
Knowing that many of them would, themselves, be exposed as complicit in contributing to and/or condoning these serious crimes, these anti-impeachment, anti-Constitution Democratic and Republican members of Congress have blocked the one prescribed remedy for the Bush administration's years of criminal behavior. They have clearly chosen their own reputations and political careers over what is necessary to serve, and, indeed, save, our democratic republic from even further deterioration into an authoritarian state with an excessively-powerful chief executive and weakened legislative and judicial branches.
In doing so, these selfish members of Congress have shamed themselves, earned condemnation from us, and endangered our future. Voting to re-elect any of these traitors to our Constitution, our country, and us, is voting against our best interests and, as such, a colossal act of folly. We must all keep this in mind come Election Day. It is the strongest argument for the dismantling of the corrupt two-party system which has led us so far from our hard-won civil liberties, our principles, and our values.
And That Is Really The Bottom Line!
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