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Tag(s): Antiwar; Christianity; Impeach; Impeachment; Law; Lies; McClellan; Propaganda; Republican
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June 16, 2008 at 23:05:11

Headlined on 6/16/08:
A Patriot Would Have to Say Impeach

by mikel weisser Page 1 of 1 page(s)

www.opednews.com

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Forget all the years of suspecting that liberal antiwar protesters not-so-secretly hated America. Forget the years of thinking that whenever some wingnut on the television was calling Bush a liar that the wingnut was actually the liar and it was all just politics as usual. Forget every time you gave Bush the benefit of a doubt on the war.

It’s official: he was lying.

Recently two major clarifications were made regarding the record of veracity when it comes to George W. Bush. Former Press Secretary, Scott McClellan, dropped his bombshell in his new book, What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington's Culture of Deception. In no uncertain terms McClellan explains that the build-up to Iraq was a propaganda program knowingly based on lies, deceptions, and distortions. The guy who actually did the lying has come out and detailed the whole plan.

There never needed to be an Iraq War, hundreds of thousands of Iraqis did not have to die. Our children did not have to learn the words Abu Ghraib, or Fallujah, or hear of Korans thrown in toilets. We did not have to determine our own feelings about waterboarding or what the tolerable level of sexual harassment is for private contractors in a war zone.

But wait there’s more: Also June 5, the Senate Intelligence Committee issued their official report insisting “top administration officials engaged in a deliberate, systematic and sustained propaganda campaign to manufacture support for the unnecessary, unjustified and illegal invasion of Iraq.”

Let me say that again: It’s official, he was lying. There’s a lot of you out there who owe Scott Ridder, Joseph Wilson, Ray McGovern, William Fallon, Richard Clarke and millions of protesters around the world an apology.

It’s true. All of those people who have been telling you Bush was lying, that the war is based on lies, 935 of them officially, they weren’t hurting our country, those patriots were trying to save it.

In the words of the Baltimore Sun’s Michael J. Marsalek “Such behavior must not go unpunished in a nation of laws.” We cannot ignore that our country has been intentionally deceived into taking a brutally wrong path. It wasn’t a mistake, it was a crime. The only moral option is impeach.

The people who insist that they care about this country, that doing what is right matters to them must now address this terrible wrong that has been foisted on our country, if we the people of the United States are to have a country of law, a country that earns respect in the world.

Starting now, the GOP or anyone else who chooses to champion Bush must cede the position of moral authority, for they are, in effect, consciously championing the sale and further manufacture of these lies, particularly the supposed Christian Religious Right of the Republican Party. At a very basic fundamental level, supporting the ideals of Christianity and the Bush agenda are, as liberals have long claimed, a contradiction in terms.

People who claim to support a Prince of Peace and a message of mercy are then forced to also endorse Black Sites, Black Water, and Extreme Rendition? Any person who would claim to be a Christian in the first place would have to condemn the idea of war in general and in particular this Bush War in Iraq on very basic moral grounds. Christians are supposed to be opposed to murder, torture, theft, deceptions, all of which have been hallmarks of the Bush administration.

Again and again American indignation has found a way to focus on some Democratic peccadilloes and buy into the false morality that sex is worst than violence. But where once or twice individual Democrats have unfortunately screwed one or two willing participants, the Bush regime has continually screwed millions at home and billions aboard, despite our pleas for mercy.

Of course mercy is a Christian value, one Bush has repeatedly, proudly dismissed as weakness. No wonder these days George Bush is less popular than dental plaque. If you’re OK with killing people for a lie, destroying the homes of millions, maiming and crippling then abandoning tens of thousands of our own soldiers, squandering trillions and raping our social services, all for a lie, then I guess you might still support Bush, but what kind of a person would you be? Not a Christian, and not a patriot.

It’s time to impeach. Call, write, do something.

--mikel weisser writes from the left coast of Arizona

Born the son of a nightclub singer, Mikel Weisser watched anti-war hippies getting beaten on TV during the Vietnam War and decided to devote his life to protest against unreasoning authority, but not to getting beaten. Though he spent almost two years traveling the country as a hitchhiker, Weisser has gone on to receive a Masters in Literature and a Masters in Secondary Education, publish hundreds of freelance magazine and newspaper articles and political commentary columns along with 7 books of poetry and short fiction. A former homeless shelter administrator, contestant on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire,and survivor of his first wife's suicide, Weisser teaches middle school US History and Constitution, is a member of the NORAZ poets and host of the Mohave Community College Documentary series, "A Liberal Education." He and his wife Beth were married at their home in So-Hi, Arizona and live with their daughter Victoria, numerous pets and have turned their property into a themepark for "peace and love and stuff." "When in AZ, visit the So-Hi Themepark!"

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3 comments

John H Kennedy is a A 43 year Denver, Colorado Democratic voter and Obama delegate to the Denver County Convention. He is fed up with the do nothing Democratic Congress' failure to protect the Constitution and the separation of powers by impeachment. He is the organizer for the
Impeach Colorado Coalition http://ImpeachCO.com He believes that to accomplish Impeachment prior to the election we must ruthlessly pressure all Democrats who are in tight races nationwide and force them to call...

to see more of bio, click on member name
John H KennedyJohn H Kennedy is a A 43 year Denver, Colorado Democratic voter and Obama delegate to the Denver County Convention. He is fed up with the do nothing Democratic Congress' failure to protect the Constitution and the separation of powers by impeachment. He is the organizer for the
Impeach Colorado Coalition http://ImpeachCO.com He believes that to accomplish Impeachment prior to the election we must ruthlessly pressure all Democrats who are in tight races nationwide and force them to call...

to see more of bio, click on member name

You and I must Push The Dems To Impeach B4 the Election

We can make it happen if we start putting some serious pressure on the House Democrats prior to the election. See:

To Impeach before Nov 4, Do Something Different, Quickly!

by John H Kennedy (7 articles, 4 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 105 comments) on Tuesday, June 17, 2008 at 4:53:52 PM

Brett Paatsch is an Australian born secular humanist with degrees in management and science and an interest in politics. He is a former pro-American that wishes to be pro-American again and thinks the impeachment and repudiation of President George W Bush for the invasion of Iraq in March 2003 is necessary to reestablish trust in American signatures on international treaties and confidence in the global rule of law.
Brett PaatschBrett Paatsch is an Australian born secular humanist with degrees in management and science and an interest in politics. He is a former pro-American that wishes to be pro-American again and thinks the impeachment and repudiation of President George W Bush for the invasion of Iraq in March 2003 is necessary to reestablish trust in American signatures on international treaties and confidence in the global rule of law.

Good article

I haven't read the McClellan book (don't really want to buy it and remunerate the guy) nor the Senate report that you reference.

Although I am not American I have been for impeachment since 19 March 2003 when Iraq was illegally invaded and the global rule of law was categorically undermined by President Bush.

For me - impeachment is obvious and non impeachment is akin to ... well its hard to find the word .. what is the word that describes killing a country? Its not homicide or fratricide or suicide or genocide but ... well you get the picture.

Here is the problem though for impeachment activists - democracies are loaded with people who don't pay attention to the big picture and who are biased. That means that they have to be persuaded to do the right thing in sufficent numbers in order for the right thing to actually get done and the wrong thing not to.

The illegal invasion of Iraq (carried out as Kucinich's articles of impeachment make clear) and torture are undoubted moral and legal wrongs of the highest most serious order. They are the sorts of wrongs that previous generations of Americans would have gone to war to prevent other nations from embarking upon.

Anyway, I don't want to rant, just thanks for the article and a request.

Because impeachment not only has to be the right thing it has to be obviously the right thing to a sufficient number of people (and their representatives) it is going to be necessary to persuade people in ways that are compelling not just to people like me that work on first principles but to them. And facts and specifics are probably the hardest things for impeachment intrasigents to deny.

If you can, if others can, and I know it puts a further burden on you, please provide specific links, page numbers etc to quotations that you use backing up assertions like McClellan shows Bush lied (your opening paragraph was very good) so that those of us who agree with you can collect the facts magpie fashion and present them.

I really don't want to have to read Scot McClellan - I saw and heard enough of that fool when he was delivering Bush administration propaganda - what I want to do is deny deniability to those who would impede impeachment and have a capacity (and a responsibility by dent of their oath to protect the constitution from domestic enemies).

I want to deny deniability specifically now to those men and women who are on the House Judiciary Committee which should, in a functioning democracy, but dealing with Kucinich's articles of impeachment as if your very country's future depended upon them doing so - because it does.

As an Australian I intend to make specific Americans know that torture and aggressive invasion against our (humanities) international rules are not acceptable. I am an aggrieved party. I used to live in a world where torture and aggressive invasion were not US Presidential perogatives because the US people had more honor and they had a system of government that provided checks and balances against such extreme breaches- and I want that world back.

I want the US people and the US Congress to know that if Americans take the global rule of law of the table by aggressive invasion and torture then even terrorism against Americans is morally justified in my opinion to put the global rule of law back on the table.

I want the US people to know that in the 6 billion people of the world most of whom were either pro America or indifferent to America prior to 19 March 2003 there are now some that would prefer to see America destroyed than to see the utterly unlawful actions of George W Bush become established precedent and part of acceptable behavior.

I am a potential terrorist if Bush is not impeached and because I am I know that there must be millions of others who feel the same way so I don't care who knows how I feel. I want Americans to understand that they have provoked moral outrage.

by Brett Paatsch (0 articles, 2 quicklinks, 22 diaries, 1010 comments) on Tuesday, June 17, 2008 at 7:15:02 PM

Born the son of a nightclub singer, Mikel Weisser watched anti-war hippies getting beaten on TV during the Vietnam War and decided to devote his life to protest against unreasoning authority, but not to getting beaten. Though he spent almost two years traveling the country as a hitchhiker, Weisser has gone on to receive a Masters in Literature and a Masters in Secondary Education, publish hundreds of freelance magazine and newspaper articles and political commentary columns along with 7 books of...

to see more of bio, click on member name
mikel weisserBorn the son of a nightclub singer, Mikel Weisser watched anti-war hippies getting beaten on TV during the Vietnam War and decided to devote his life to protest against unreasoning authority, but not to getting beaten. Though he spent almost two years traveling the country as a hitchhiker, Weisser has gone on to receive a Masters in Literature and a Masters in Secondary Education, publish hundreds of freelance magazine and newspaper articles and political commentary columns along with 7 books of...

to see more of bio, click on member name

Enough of Scott & Etc.

I couldn't agree with you more. After i wrote that appeal/column, i saw McClellan on the TV news show, Democracy Now, and watched the segment, but even though he was, AT LAST, speaking the truth about the deceptions, you could tell he was still, for the most part, a true believer in Bush and the neo-con "vision." He just got sick of the lying part.

But that's the thing: when you base your "vision" on something that depends on a "lying part," the vision is going to be flawed from then on. There are so many things i disagree with the neo-cons over, but i marvel at their singularity of purpose and their ability to convert people who would actually be far better served opposing their aims.

Americans rendered jobless by outsourcing cheering Bush's economy vision. Racists who hate Arabs yet pay $4.00 gas to the Bush bedpartners, the house of Saud. Folks who care enough about the glorious visions of the potential legacy of "freedom" in this country to risk their lives, joining the military and then on orders go and destroy the freedom and country of others. On and on--

I ferverently agree America as a whole needs to rise up in rebuke against Bush to preserve our national dignity among other countries of the world. We've allowed a callously murderous kleptocrat create our world image for the last eight years. The Bush legacy is OUR legacy to the world if the US doesn't condemn him and his actions.

Actually i published my first anti-Bush column in August of 2000 while he was still running for election. AND, like so many other dissidents, for the last 8 years i have recurringly second-guessed myself about what if i wrong. McClellan and the Senate report fortify all American dissidents: it wasn't just us being pissy. If you have any energy left now is the time to use it. All of us need to be something, something, to show our outrage and insistence. The guy was wrong and we need to work to fix or WE are also wrong through our silence.

--mikel

by mikel weisser (19 articles, 3 quicklinks, 6 diaries, 53 comments) on Tuesday, June 17, 2008 at 7:54:29 PM