Wednesday, August 20, 2008
Impeach Bush and Cheney Before We Really Are Rolling Into WW III.
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Lieberman, Graham Head to Georgia in Biden’s Wake
By Adam Graham-Silverman, CQ Staff
Republican presidential candidate John McCain may not be able to travel to Georgia just now, but two of his surrogates headed off today to do some intelligence gathering of their own on the Russian invasion.
Sens. Joseph I. Lieberman , I-Conn., and Lindsey Graham , R-S.C., both closely involved in the Arizona’s senator’s campaign, are traveling to Poland and the Ukraine as well to gauge reaction.
“We are going to Tbilisi, Warsaw and Kiev to meet with the leaders of these important American allies and to discuss the Russian invasion of Georgia,” Lieberman said. “This is a moment in history when it is vital for the world’s democracies to stand in solidarity.”
The Lieberman-Graham visit follows a weekend trip to Georgia by Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Joseph R. Biden Jr. , D-Del. Biden returned on Monday amid talk of a possible vice presidential nod from Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama .
At a speech to the Veterans of Foreign Wars Convention in Orlando Tuesday, Obama was still holding his cards close to the vest. But he mentioned Biden’s trip and embraced his call for $1 billion in emergency aid for Georgia when Congress reconvenes next month.
Biden also has served notice that the Russian invasion has “erased” prospects for a pending U.S.-Russian civilian nuclear deal and a waiver of restrictions blocking Russia’s entry into the World Trade Organization.
The White House, meanwhile, stressed today that whatever the final dollar figure, emergency assistance to Georgia would amount to “a substantial commitment” from the U.S. for humanitarian, reconstruction and military aid.
The Crisis Papers on DU
Democratic Underground - Washington,DC,USA
A third explanation presents itself: That on the most important issues that might make Cheney and Bush liable for impeachment and/or criminal prosecution, ...
http://journals.democraticunderground.com/CrisisPapers/190
Lies and Criminality in Justice Department and in Georgia -- "So?"
Posted by CrisisPapers in Editorials & Other Articles
Tue Aug 19th 2008, 02:46 PM
| Bernard Weiner |
This is an essay about the consequences of lies and law-breaking emanating from the top of the government. We'll get to Russia's Putin and Georgia's Saakashvili below. First:
How can you tell when the Busheviks in America are telling lies or trying to hide the truth? One could resort to the old saw "When their lips are moving," but sometimes these guys inadvertently just spill the beans. Remember Bush's own accidental truth-bomb when he said his role as president is to "catapult the propaganda"?
And often they just shove the truth in your face and dare you to respond.
For example: Attorney General Mukasey last week said that no indictments will be filed against Department of Justice employees who, in violation of the law, used partisan political criteria for hiring and firing. Mukasey just came right out and said it: "Not every...violation of the law is a crime."
That's an interesting interpretation of the law. When YOU Democrats do it, it's a crime, to be punished to the fullest extent of the law. But when WE Republicans do it, even though it's against the law, since we're the good guys, we'll just let the matter rest.
OUR GUYS AND YOUR GUYS
Other examples: If Bill Clinton or John Edwards tells a lie about his secret sexual trysts, we'll destroy those guys and make sure they never serve in public office again. True, John McCain was having a sexual affair with a younger woman while his then-wife was battling uterine cancer -- but, hey, he's OUR guy, that's old news, no harm done, nothing to see here just move along, folks.
But all those are examples of lies that have mainly personal consequences. What about lies that have grave ramifications? Well, the GOP has an answer to that as well. If OUR guy, George W, tells lies and hundreds of thousands of people are killed or maimed as a result -- our troops along with Iraqi civilians -- it's no big deal, get over it, mission accomplished, "victory" will be coming along any day now.
That's how the hardliners in the CheneyBush administration do their dirty work: OK, you caught us out violating the law. What you going to do about it? (And, by the way, we'll make sure never to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate our indiscretions -- never ever -- so suck on that.)
The House issues subpoenas to White House officials to testify and produce documents relevant to government business. The officials, acting on orders from the White House, refuse to appear. A court, citing the separation of powers established by the founders, backs up the House and says Administration officials are required by law to appear and also must supply the relevant documents. The officials do neither. The House writes nasty letters to them. Eventually it cites them for contempt of Congress. And that's the end of it. There is no move made to have those law-breakers arrested, charged and tried.
THE BIG SHRUG OF "SO?"
Taking a leaf from Dick Cheney (who responded with a "so?" when reminded that the American public has been overwhelmingly opposed to his Iraq war-policy for several years now), the Administration's response to public anger about the Executive refusing to obey lawful Congressional subpoenas is: "So? Whatcha gonna do about it?"
Since the Democrats wimp out and do nothing that could make any difference, the upshot of this kind of behavior is that corrupt, power-hungry officials in the CheneyBush Administration feel free to do whatever they want whenever they want because they know they will suffer no political or legal consequences for so doing.
The one constitutional remedy available to the Legislative branch when the Executive branch goes out of control like this, impeachment, has been ruled "off the table" by the Democratic leadership, thus further enabling the unconstitutional, run-amok behavior of the CheneyBush Administration.
"OFF-THE-TABLE" A MISTAKE OR DELIBERATE?
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, who issued the "off the table" dictum prior to the 2006 balloting (presumably so as not to scare off potential moderate voters in that midterm election) now has come up with more non-sensical excuses not to impeach. Basically, what this rationale suggests is that:
1. It simply doesn't make sense to enter into such a time- and energy-draining enterprise as impeachment this late in the game. Obvious reply: Impeachment hearings could have been initiated two years ago, if Democrats had been willing to OK a preliminary House hearing on the Administration's alleged violations of the Constitution. At the very least, beginning impeachment hearings now would let future presidents know that the Legislative branch will hold them accountable if they ever overstep their legitimate authority. By doing nothing, all Chief Executives now have a green light to overstep their legal authority whenever they so choose. This is a dagger aimed at the heart of democratic, constitutional government.
2. Pelosi now says she'd consider holding impeachment hearings if anyone can show her compelling evidence of "high crimes and misdemeanors" committed by Cheney and Bush. Apparently, Pelosi didn't catch the Democratic primary debates, where the issue of impeachment was broached by Dennis Kucinich and Joe Biden. And it would seem that poor Ms. Pelosi doesn't read newspapers, or watch television or know how to use Google.
But wait. A third explanation presents itself: That on the most important issues that might make Cheney and Bush liable for impeachment and/or criminal prosecution, key Democrats, including Pelosi, were and are complicit: authorizing the Iraq war and occupation (and continuing to fund it off the books, as it were), acquiescing to Bush's warrantless spying on and collecting data about millions of Americans, approving of retroactive immunity for the giant telecom corporations that broke the domestic-spying laws, etc etc.
In other words, to accuse the White House of immoral, illegal and unconstitutional behavior would be to focus attention on their own similar lapses and potential criminal acts. Hence, the Congressional Democrats make sure not to look too hard into Administration misbehavior, lest they risk the public's approbation of the enabling Legislative branch as well.
McCAIN: GEORGIA ON HIS MIND
There's no way one can even begin to provide a shorthand version of the Georgia/Russia clash. If anyone tries to tell you that one side is the victim and the other a monster, don't you believe them. Everyone is lying, deceiving, operating out of their own power agenda, attempting to use history as their rationalization. There is no simple black hat/white hat situation in that region of the world. This is one of those infinitely tangled social/political/economic webs where everyone is to blame for the death and dying and social dislocations.
And that includes the U.S., which has supported and encouraged Georgia to bash the nose of their neighboring Russian bear. Saakashvili may have been led to believe they'd been encouraged by the U.S. to attack the ethnic-Russian region of South Ossetia. (Oh, by the by, did I mention -- surprise! -- that there are huge oil reserves in the Caspian basin, and a vital pipeline across Georgia?)
To McCain and his neo-con supporters, itching to return to the oh-so-simple proscriptions of the Cold War era, last week's events are as simple as simple can be: With no provocation, Russia invaded a sovereign nation, peace-loving Georgia, and is attempting to occupy the country and carry out "regime change." (The hypocrisy of Bush leveling these charges at Russia with a straight face, given his behavior in Iraq, is almost laughable, especially this line: "Bullying and intimidation are not acceptable ways to conduct foreign policy in the 21st century.")
Therefore, according to McCain and Bush -- and, to a certain extent, Obama as well -- Russia needs to be confronted for its perfidy in invading Georgia, which just happens to be a firm ally of Bush's U.S. of A. (Oh, by the way, McCain's top foreign-policy advisor, Randy Scheunemann, up until a few months ago worked as a high-priced lobbyist for the Georgian government, and remains the president of the firm that continues to pick up contracts for advocating Georgia's point of view inside the White House.)
McCAIN: RECKLESS AND DANGEROUS
McCain, who never met a situation that shouldn't be handled with a show of strength and violence, is displaying his true militarist colors: shoot first and ask questions later. Show strength, act with muscularity, go to war if the other guys don't back down.
McCain, who shoots from the lip, is dangerous and reckless and, it would seem, increasingly out of his guord. But that's the man who could be President in six months, making Bush and Cheney seem almost reasonable by comparison.
It seems clear that McCain feels most comfortable and energized when there's a military confrontation going on. He got stuck in the "must-not-give-in-must-show-strength" mode when he was a POW in North Vietnam, and he's still caught up in that groove, even when current foreign-policy crises call for other approaches.
In addition, after watching Barack Obama behaving "presidential" on his recent world tour -- meeting with foreign leaders, mingling with U.S. troops, flying around Iraq in a helicopter with General Petraeus, addressing hundreds of thousands of admirers in Germany, etc. -- McCain felt insulted, diminished, unable to respond in kind. He was reduced to visiting a German sausage restaurant in Pennsylvania.
So, offered the gift of an ongoing war in Georgia, McCain decided now it is his turn to act "presidential." So he said he'd be dispatching his envoys (Lieberman and Graham) to Georgia on a "fact-finding" mission -- which, if they engage in any kind of negotiations with the parties there, would be a serious violation of the Logan Act, which states that only the Executive branch is authorized to do so. And McCain, backed up by his neo-con chorus, is calling, in essence, for a return to the Cold War against "evil" Russia.
THE ORIGIN OF QUAGMIRES
As I write this, a ceasefire of sorts has been worked out by the French, even though the Russians are continuing to destroy Georgian military capabilities as they oh-so-slowly depart. (The French, who have street-cred in Europe, were able to arrange the ceasefire, whereas America under CheneyBush has lost all credibility and moral stature there, and elsewhere around the globe.)
At first, McCain's overheated rhetoric was too much even for the Administration. CheneyBush preferred, at first, to tone down the bellicose verbiage and tried to cajole and diplomatically lean on the actual Russian leader, Putin, to alter his policies in Georgia. But CheneyBush, with few if any creative foreign policy smarts of their own, soon adopted the McCain line and spoke of moving U.S. troops into the key ports and cities of Georgia -- for "delivery of humanitarian aid." This is throwing gasoline on a smoldering fire, dangerous and reckless as can be, putting American forces potentially face-to-face with Russian troops. Defense Secretary Robert Gates had to come out in public and make clear that the U.S. would take no untoward action in Georgia.
It never fails. The U.S., anxious to police the world and control various regions' natural resources, moves into ongoing conflicts outside its geographical zone of influence and knowledge (Vietnam, Iraq, Georgia, etc.), doesn't understand the complex local politics and thus gets sucked into age-old conflicts between warring tribes and factions, endlessly repeats the quagmire syndrome -- wrong war, wrong place, wrong time -- while wrecking the U.S. economy in the process.
McCain, CheneyBush and their neo-con backers are lighting matches in the explosive situation in Georgia, and elsewhere (now Russia says it will target its missiles at U.S. alley Poland, since that country has signed on to Bush's missile-defense system), and risking a renewed Cold War, and maybe even a hot one, with Russia.
There Is No Rational Reason Not To Impeach Bush and Cheney
By Ed. Dickau(Ed. Dickau)
There Is No Rational Reason Not To Impeach Bush and Cheney Given… The “Melluva Hess” They Have Created… Their Buddy Pelosi Can Go With Them. Justice Department Asks For Stay of Subpoenas ...The Impeachment Hearing Room - http://
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