The calculating, craven, and ultimately treasonous Democrats admit that they’re not impeaching Bush because of a political calculation; that they can win in 08 by leaving him there, and making use of the status quo. As bad as that is however, there are additional reasons which are far more egregious than playing politics with American and Iraqi deaths and ruin.
It must first be remembered that only 22 Democrats voted against the resolution which unconstitutionally ceded Congressional War Powers to the President; The 2nd Iraq War therefor is inarguably a bipartisan disaster with an actual majority of Democrats supporting it.
Although it’s true insofar as they’ve admitted it, that the refusal to hold Bush accountable through impeachment, is a political decision made for the worst possible reasons, the more important reason Nancy Pelosi flagrantly violated her oath of office by saying “Impeachment is off the table”, is because an impeachment would bring about the presentation of evidence; evidence which would not only prove the case against Bush, but also his enablers.
Dick Durbin recently went public with an accusation against Hillary Clinton; that she, and others who sat of the Select Foreign Intelligence Committee, were privy to declassified intelligence that contained additional facts which were exculpatory to Iraq, beyond those which the rest of Congress were presented. I read the declassified NIE presented to Congress, and like so many others outside of government who studied the matter, I was able to conclude that the case against Saddam Hussien was not only filled with doubt, but that his current possession of the alleged WMD and nuclear capability was highly improbable. If those of us ordinary citizens who correctly read and interpreted the declassified NIE could come to the right conclusion, how much more then, should the members of the Select Foreign Intelligence Committee who received additional intelligence which weakened an already weak case, even further?
Dick Durbin rightly stated that on account of the rules, he could not go public with his further doubts gleaned from his presence on the committee; to have done so would have placed him in violation of the law. All he could do, was join 21 other house members, and vote against the resolution authorizing military force.
The star witness for the prosecution of Saddam Hussein as a “threat” to the United States and his neighbors, was Hussein Kamel, Saddam’s own Son in law and a defector who provided the entire stockpile list of WMD as read by Colin Powel to the UN Security Council as justification for war. I do not know what additional exculpatory evidence the Select Foreign Intelligence Committee was privy to, but the transcripts of the interrogation of Hussien Kamel which were declassified and widely available both to the entire Congress, and you and I via the internet, already contained a piece of exculpatory information which was knowingly and willfully withheld from the court (The U.N.) by the Bush administration: "I made the decision to disclose everything so that Iraq could return to normal." (p.8)…… "not a single missile left but they had blueprints and molds for production. All missiles were destroyed." (p.8) ……."I ordered destruction of all chemical weapons. All weapons - biological, chemical, missile, nuclear were destroyed" (p. 13)…. We gave insturctions [sic] not to produce chemical weapons." (p.13). -Hussein Kamel, head of Iraq's military industries.
LIES, LIES, LIES:
# Prime Minister Tony Blair in his statement to the House of Commons on 25 February 2003, said: "It was only four years later after the defection of Saddam's son-in-law to Jordan, that the offensive biological weapons and the full extent of the nuclear programme were discovered."
# President Bush declared in a 7 October 2002 speech: "In 1995, after several years of deceit by the Iraqi regime, the head of Iraq's military industries defected. It was then that the regime was forced to admit that it had produced more than 30,000 liters of anthrax and other deadly biological agents. The inspectors, however, concluded that Iraq had likely produced two to four times that amount. This is a massive stockpile of biological weapons that has never been accounted for, and capable of killing millions."
# Colin Powell's 5 February 2003 presentation to the UN Security Council claimed: "It took years for Iraq to finally admit that it had produced four tons of the deadly nerve agent, VX. A single drop of VX on the skin will kill in minutes. Four tons. The admission only came out after inspectors collected documentation as a result of the defection of Hussein Kamal, Saddam Hussein's late son-in-law."
# In a speech on 26 August 2002, Vice-President Dick Cheney said Kamel's story "should serve as a reminder to all that we often learned more as the result of defections than we learned from the inspection regime itself". It is a crime against the court in every court to knowingly withhold exculpatory evidence. The “WMD stockpile” list which was read before the U.N. Security Council was quoted verbatim from Hussein Kamel’s interrogation transcript. The final statements by Kamel –(Those weapons were all destroyed in 1991) was deliberately dis-included from the evidence as otherwise read from the transcript. Furthermore, without the witness in question –Hussein Kamel- there was no “list” of WMD. His testimony was the sole basis for the case presented to the U.N. This was more than enough for me and so many others who did their pre-war homework, to conclude that the case against Saddam Hussein was without merit, and even further, to conclude beyond any doubt, that the deliberate secreting of the most important exculpatory statement on record, was proof positive that the Bush administration was lying through their teeth. The innermerable statements by Bush and Cheney that regarding WMD “There can be no doubt”, was not only the biggest lie ever told in the political history of the United States, but the most easilly proven lie ever told. There was nothing BUT “doubt” and they knew it. It was reported by an un-named source inside the White House, that when Colin Powel was first presented with the charges he read before the U.N. Security Council, that he threw the stack of papers into the air and shouted “This is bullshit!”. Indeed it was, and Powel knew it. But WHY then, did he go on to present a case he knew was a lie?
The answer to that, and many other questions would probably come to light in impeachment proceedings against Bush. We know that under Bush 41, April Glaspie (State Department) was approached by an envoy from Saddam Hussein regarding his ongoing border dispute with Kuwait, and that Glaspie was clearly told by the envoy that Saddam wanted permission from the United States to use military force against Kuwait to “solve the problem” if he could not solve it peacefully. We also know, as a matter of record, that rather than Bush 41’s representative telling Saddam’s envoy “Do not attack Kuwait”, Glaspie’s message to Saddam was “Your internal Arab disputes are none of our concern”.
We know also, that through two-terms of the Clinton administration, the so-called “containment” of Saddam Hussein was predicated on economic sanctions which resulted in the starvation deaths of at least half a million Iraqi children, and we further know that –according to the star WMD witness, Husein Kamel – the Clinton administration was engaged in a policy of brutal economic oppression resulting in the loss of innocent life, with the knowledge that Saddam probably had in fact actually complied and destroyed the weapons in question. This then creates an unavoidable conclusion: The first Gulf War was deliberately fostered by Bush 41 through deceit via the State Department, the decades of so-called “containment” were predicated knowingly to the death of half a million innocent children by the Clinton administration, and that this long range deceit culminated in the final deception; unprovoked, unwarrented war by George W. Bush, with the full support of Bill Clinton; there was a damned good reason Bill Clinton went onto Larry King and had Bush’ back when he said Bush “Didn’t lie”: They all lied. Powel ultimately chose to lie to the whole world because he was up to his ass in decades of deception regarding Saddam; Like any organized crime participant, Powel lied because he was already dirty and he was ultimately forced to.
Any impeachment of George W. Bush has implications far beyond this administration; as the evidence is brought forward, it would inevitably threaten not just Bush and Cheney, but would threaten the entire political establishment through a revelation that “this mess” has been an evolving conspiracy spanning almost 20 years. It would threatened to take down the entire political establishment.
The removal of impeachment from the table and refusal to impeach Bush by Nancy Pelosi, goes far beyond immediate political expediency, as overtly corrupt as that concept alone is; it is protecting the Democratic front runner from voluminous evidence that her husband was first complicit in fraud and crimes against humanity, and that she herself has continued the greatest fraud ever perpetrated upon the American people through her knowledge that in fact Saddam probably did NOT possess WMD. Whatever she knew, whatever her husband knew, and whatever Bush 41 initiated, is all threatened with exposure were the requisite evidentiary hearing to proceed concurrent with impeachment proceeding against George W. Bush.
This is why the claims by right-wingers of “Yeah but Clinton thought they had WMD” as a defense, carry absolutely no weight with me in my assessment of the situation. No, he didn’t. Bill Clinton knew with certainty by August of 1995, the date of the defection and interrogation of Hussein Kamel, that the ONLY reliable governmental source for any conclusion of U.N. weapons violations, had cleared Saddam and placed him in probable U.N. compliance.
I agree to some extent, but I think you push the argument way too far, especially as concerns the Clintons being responsible for so many Iraqi deaths. Check your facts, including the fact that those were UN santions. I didn't agree with them, but that's another story.
I don't want another Clinton as President, but that's because I don't want another DLC member, corporate-loving, take-as-much-money-as-it-takes-to-get-elected Democrat as president. I want someone like Al Gore, Russ Feingold, etc., but currently those choices are off the table.
If you hate what the Republicans are doing, write the Democrats in Congess once a week and tell them to impeach. If enough people write, it just might be forced through congress. I write to them constantly, do you?
John
by
John R Moffett (80 articles, 14 quicklinks, 2 diaries, 611 comments)
on Saturday, May 12, 2007 at 2:41:51 PM
I agree to some extent, but I think you push the argument way too far, especially as concerns the Clintons being responsible for so many Iraqi deaths. Check your facts, including the fact that those were UN santions. I didn't agree with them, but that's another story."
ESBE: Here is an excellent analysis which I linked to when I submitted the article, but which the website software deleted from my article:
hxxp://middleeastreference.org.uk/kamel.html (Replace xx with tt in the URL, this was the only way I was able to post the address here)
The American people have been lead into a false paradigm, very deliberately, between faith in the U.N., and faith in their elected officials. Neither one has been remotely ethical. The hobsen's choice was further manifested with the appointment of that gigantic asshole John Bolten. The powers that be don't really care which political party you vote for, because they pass the ball back and forth every four or eight years in a game of globalization that kills millions of people. The DNC corporatists you refere to are there to insure that at the end of the day, politicians do the bidding of the IMF. Clinton's war on Yugoslavia was in reality, nothing more than a competently executed version of Bush' war on Iraq, done for exactly the same reasons. I consider him a successful war criminal insofar as he managed to gain an actual international coalition to commit his attrocities.
In my book, neither coalitions, UN approval, or any other political measure sanctioning an action, substitutes for the actual ethics of an action, or the truth of facts on the ground. The United States is not the only corrupt power in the world; most of them are corrupt. But this is my country, and I expect it to act honestly in the world, even if it's the only one. As it stands, we are the worst offender and at the epicenter of almost every corruption of global policy because the UN has been rendered nothing more than a tool of US imperialism.
"I don't want another Clinton as President, but that's because I don't want another DLC member, corporate-loving, take-as-much-money-as-it-takes-to-get-elected Democrat as president. I want someone like Al Gore, Russ Feingold, etc., but currently those choices are off the table. "
ESBE: I absolutely believe Hillary Clinton will attack Iran if she's elected.
"If you hate what the Republicans are doing, write the Democrats in Congess once a week and tell them to impeach. If enough people write, it just might be forced through congress. I write to them constantly, do you?
John"
ESBE: I write to them often.
by
Esbe (50 articles, 0 quicklinks, 17 diaries, 85 comments)
on Sunday, May 13, 2007 at 8:31:52 AM
Correction: 150+ Democrats voted against Iraq War Resolutio
Vote= #00237
some reason, links I provided when I submitted my article disappeared and the hyperlink function is not working for me.
The Senate is where the rubber meets the road as far as I'm concerned, but you can put lipstick on it by adding the dems from both houses all together if you want to. I personally find it desperate.
The bottom line is that the Democrats could easily have stopped the resolution.
You are spinning and factually incorrect regarding the information Congress had available to it prior to the authorization. The transcript of Hussein Kamel's interrogation was freely available online not just to congress, but to the public, and if you do a google search, you will find it was referenced, analysed, and linked by many anti-war bloggers prior to the war authorization.
I read found and the transcript before this war, and I expect anyone actually charged with making a decision of the magnitude of the one made, to have done the same. Perhaps you're just more tolerant of a cowardly, lazy, and stupid congress after 600,000 plus deaths for no reason than I am.
Call me non-partisen, but I do believe I shall continue to cling to my stubborn demand that people be competent, honest, and held accountable when they aren't.
Here are the rest of the links deleted from my original submission:
The interview with Hussein Kamel: the text of the transcript is here:
www.casi.org.uk/info/unscom950822.pdf
More analysis at: hxxp://middleeastreference.org.uk/kamel.html (replace xx with tt in URL)
by
Esbe (50 articles, 0 quicklinks, 17 diaries, 85 comments)
on Sunday, May 13, 2007 at 8:16:39 AM
More like NOT mentioning all elected Democrats in congress who voted a certain way in order to artificially lower the count is simply dishonest.
A valid point doesnt need selective inclusion of facts where you omit those that are inconvenient to your thesis.
This is so typical of the "Blame the Democrats for Everything" crowd here. Convenient exclusion of facts, moving the goalposts when the Democrats do something good that many of you folks said "The Democrats would never have the guts to do X..." .
Honesty is tough, particularly when one has become what Orwell termed as an Anti-Nationalist against someone or some group. Oh, sure, you are happy to research to minute detail any possible reason to discredit Democrats, but you are curiously negligent in your research when it comes to reasons to credit them with something. Did you mention Bob Graham? No. Wellstone? No. Kucinich? No. Maxine Waters? No. Obama? No. You conveniently neglected to mention them even though as many Democrats voted opposite of how you suggested as not. Would anyone here care to mention how any graduate level thesis or scientific peer reviewed paper would be received when the facts stack up 50-50 for and against?
The final point I will make here is that it seems there is a clear line of legacy of the strategy used by those in the "Blame Democrats for Everything" crowd to the 1980's Republicans and all the way back to the Goebbels and Streichers of this world and that is "Repeat a lie often enough and people begin to believe it".
by
Steven Leser (213 articles, 45 quicklinks, 33 diaries, 1399 comments)
on Sunday, May 13, 2007 at 9:30:44 AM
Congresspeople outside of the House and Senate Intelligence committees were not privy to much of the information you cite. Erstwhile Democratic Senator from Florida Bob Graham said as much when explaining his Nay vote and why other Democrats may not have voted that way.
It wasnt just the Democratic congressional caucus that was split just about down the middle. The 50 million or so registered Democrats in this country were split 50-50. I remember arguing with the pro-war 50% regularly.
Its easy to wantonly criticize people. It takes a lot more effort to be objective and fair and to do a more thorough analysis of what was actually happening at the time and who knew what, and when.
by
Steven Leser (213 articles, 45 quicklinks, 33 diaries, 1399 comments)
on Sunday, May 13, 2007 at 1:08:56 AM
Congresspeople outside of the House and Senate Intelligence committees were not privy to much of the information you cite."
ESBE: That's simply untrue. The transcript of Hussein Kamel's interrogation referenced in my article was available not only to congress, but to anyone who cared to to read it online. These people did not do their homework.
by
Esbe (50 articles, 0 quicklinks, 17 diaries, 85 comments)
on Sunday, May 13, 2007 at 8:36:34 AM
Bob Graham, who has often been described by friends, foes, and everything in between as the most honest person they have met, has consistently said since the day of his "Nay" vote that he and Durbin and other members of the Senate Select Intelligence Committee had access to important information that other members of congress did not.
It was after I spoke with Graham in person (He was my senator when I lived in Florida and I was a Democratic Party District Chairperson in Pinellas County so I had some access) that I became firmly anti-war. He couldnt devulge any special information to me but it was because he said he had reasons due to his membership in the committee and that was enough for me. His reputation for honesty is, as I said, unparalleled. Your word does not compare with his.
by
Steven Leser (213 articles, 45 quicklinks, 33 diaries, 1399 comments)
on Sunday, May 13, 2007 at 9:51:05 AM
Bob Graham, who has often been described by friends, foes, and everything in between as the most honest person they have met, has consistently said since the day of his "Nay" vote that he and Durbin and other members of the Senate Select Intelligence Committee had access to important information that other members of congress did not."
ESBE: Now who is "moving goal posts" here? Your originally stated that "information that ***YOU*** [SIC] cited was not available to Congress".
I correctly stated that that is not true. YES IT WAS. READ my friend, for I went on to ackowledge that the Select Foriegn Intelligence Commitee DID receive information that the rest of congress was not privy to. THAT -however- was NOT the information I cited. Neither you OR I know what that information was at this date. No soup for you. And that fact doesn't change the other facts I put forth; the information I DID cite WAS available, not only to congress, but to anyone who cared enough to do their homework. It was MORE than enough information to come to the right conclusion. I did. Lots of people did.
As to your accusation that I'm some kind of partisan hater of Democrats, well that's just too goddamned ridicules for words. I voted for Al Gore in 2000. I voted for John Kerry in 2004. And I voted a straight Democratic ticket across the board in 2006, in what I then believed, and now know that I RIGHTLY believed, was going to be in vain because MOST of these people are EXACTLY what I allege them to be. It's really YOU who's displaying a partisen bent here. You think it's fundamentally dishonest of me not to add together both houses when making the point that a majority of Democrats supported this war. Go ahead then and add them together on the part of dems who supported the war, and it's STILL a majority of Democrats who supported this war. And for the record, I have NEVER voted for a Republican candidate in a general election, I am neither a Republican nor a Democrat, but an independant who has long recognized the threat presented by the GOP and who has done MY part to stop them. So you're not going to get ANY traction with alleging bullshit about Esbe's political allegiences.
The next FACT (that is what I deal in much to your apparent dismay) is that the GOP's Hitlerian enabling of Bush could easily have been stopped in EITHER house, by the dems, and there were simply not enough good men to do it, even though less than half of either house could have brought it all to a sreaming halt before it ever got off the ground.
You need a reality check, beginning with OWNING the culpability of the Democratic party in allowing this to happen, and I for one, am not going to allow anyone's partisan spin of what were clearly unassailable facts, inconvienient though they may be, to go unanswered.
"It was after I spoke with Graham in person (He was my senator when I lived in Florida and I was a Democratic Party District Chairperson in Pinellas County so I had some access) that I became firmly anti-war. He couldnt devulge any special information to me but it was because he said he had reasons due to his membership in the committee and that was enough for me. His reputation for honesty is, as I said, unparalleled. Your word does not compare with his."
ESBE: The attack on Iraq was a major international war crime, illegal under our Constitution, and illegal among all bodies of world government. IF Mr. Graham is really the wonderful public servant you allege him to be, he owes it to his country to quite cowering behind his desk, and to convene a press conference to tell the American people what he knows. That's an opinion, it's mine, and I leave it to the reader to determine whether Graham's inaction in the face of treason is more ethical than my reasoning.
by
Esbe (50 articles, 0 quicklinks, 17 diaries, 85 comments)
on Sunday, May 13, 2007 at 9:14:57 PM
Because we are going around in circles, let me say this as my final comment. You ask what Graham "did about his beliefs" vis-a-vis Iraq? He ran for President. That isnt exactly hiding behind his desk. Every campaign speech he gave he spoke his mind. Did YOU do anything to try to hear what he had to say? Obviously not because you are completely ignorant about him.
You are ignorant about him because you are willfully so about anything that would disturb your one sided rant against Democrats.
by
Steven Leser (213 articles, 45 quicklinks, 33 diaries, 1399 comments)
on Monday, May 14, 2007 at 8:30:39 AM
ESBE: No we're not. You falsely attributed a claim to me, and then went on the issue a claim I DID MAKE, that you you dis-attributed to be, that I in fact clearly made. That's not a circle. That's me refuting you with facts. Facts which are there for anyone who cares to read what I wrote, ALL OF IT, can see.
"let me say this as my final comment. You ask what Graham "did about his beliefs" vis-a-vis Iraq?"
ESBE: No I didn't. I asked why he didn't come forward with what he knew. I know this is less convienient for you to deal with, but that is what I asked. You have yet to answer that.
"He ran for President. That isnt exactly hiding behind his desk. Every campaign speech he gave he spoke his mind. Did YOU do anything to try to hear what he had to say? Obviously not because you are completely ignorant about him."
ESBE: I'm not ignorant about Graham. I know who he is, and I've followed his statements rather carefully. But apprently my replies and questions have reduced you to an ad-hominim personal attack here. I'm satisfied to leave this argument where you've left it, for the facts I provided are still standing, and your personal attack means nothing to me.
"You are ignorant about him because you are willfully so about anything that would disturb your one sided rant against Democrats.
by sleser001 (108 articles, 416 comments) on Monday, May 14, 2007 at 8:30:39 AM"
ESBE" "one sided rant against Democrats". Now that is hillarious. Thanks. Allow me to leave you with excerpts from my "one sided rant", that those who read YOUR accusation, might read it in the presence of the following excerpts from my editorial:
"It is a crime against the court in every court to knowingly withhold exculpatory evidence……….
the deliberate secreting of the most important exculpatory statement on record, was proof positive that the Bush administration was lying through their teeth.
The innumerable statements by Bush and Cheney that regarding WMD “There can be no doubt”, was not only the biggest lie ever told in the political history of the United States, but the most easilly proven lie ever told. There was nothing BUT “doubt” and they knew it.
The refusal to impeach George W. Bush for the innumerable and immeasurable high crimes everyone knows he’s committed, and which have already been substantively proven through public records,……
……. demand impeachment and trials now." -Jay Esbe
Maybe I can get a job working for Bush/Cheney and the GOP via a letter of recommendation from you, no?
by
Esbe (50 articles, 0 quicklinks, 17 diaries, 85 comments)
on Monday, May 14, 2007 at 10:39:55 AM
Must Read (
Well Said (
News (
Touching (
Funny (
Supported (
Interesting (
Inspiring (
Valuable (
