Impeachment, it's not just for breakfast anymore

Endless War Watch

Here is a trailer for a film that is set to premier on July 27th, titled “No End in Sight”, that looks like it will expose just how disastrous the execution of the Iraq war has been. Again, since Bush and Cheney seem just as pleased as they can be with the way Iraq has turned out, we must assume that this is what they had in mind all along.

Modest Proposal Watch

The blogger Jon Swift examines the conservatives’ hopes for another terrorist attack, and notes that they really, really are hoping for another one. Because then, we’ll all get “serious” about the War on Terra and support the Chimpmaster General again. Right. It doesn’t seem to occur to anyone to actually blame the GOP for taking away all of our rights and STILL not protecting us from a future attack. Trading liberty for safety, anyone?

Impeachment Watch

Bill Moyers hosted an excellent discussion between conservative Bruce Fein and liberal John Nichols on Friday, in which both of them argued very eloquently on the absolute need of this republic to impeach Cheney and Bush. I couldn’t agree more. Every time a Republican administration gets away with treason, they pardon themselves and we are reassured that if we just let them get away with it, they won’t make any fuss and everyone in Washington will be comfortable and the nation needs to “heal” and there is too much partisan rancor. Meanwhile, the perpetrators only learn that they should continue to do this time and again, and they keep coming back to government. Cheney and Rumsfeld learned this from the Ford Nixon pardons; Negroponte, Poindexter, Abrams, Bush Jr., Powell, and Cheney learned it again from the Bush I pardons of the Iran Contra conspirators; now neocons everywhere will learn the same lesson (commit crimes and pardon, commit crimes and pardon) from the Libby commutation and the flurry of pardons which will no doubt happen in January 2009. This is one of the most cogent and correct presentations I’ve seen on television in the last 20 years, and it is no surprise that Moyers is the host.

Also on the subject of impeachment, this short article from After Downing Street points out that we don’t need any more lengthy investigations before deciding to impeach, especially for Cheney. The author notes that

Their crimes stand open on the table before us. Their lies about Iraqi ties to al Qaeda are on videotape and in writing, and they continue to make them to this day. Their claims about Iraqi weapons have been shown in every detail to have been, not mistakes, but lies. Their threats to Iran are on videotape. Bush being warned about Katrina and claiming he was not are on videotape. Bush lying about illegal spying and later confessing to it are on videotape. A federal court has ruled that spying to be a felony. The Supreme Court has ruled Bush and Cheney's system of detentions unconstitutional. Torture, openly advocated for by Bush and Cheney and their staffs, is documented by victims, witnesses, and public photographs. Torture was always illegal and has been repeatedly recriminalized under Bush and Cheney. Bush has reversed laws with signing statements. Those statements are posted on the White House website, and a GAO report found that with 30 percent of Bush's signing statements in which he announces his right to break laws, he has in fact proceeded to break those laws. For these and many other offenses, no investigation is needed because no better evidence is even conceivable. And rather than taking three months, the impeachment of Cheney or Bush could be completed in a day.

Stonewalling Watch

Here is another clip of Rove aide Sara Taylor at the Senate Judiciary Committee hearings from last week. In this excerpt, Taylor repeatedly tells Patrick Leahy that Bush had nothing to do with the fired US attorneys, was never in a discussion or a meeting about them. Finally, Leahy lowers the boom and reminds her that if that is indeed the case, then Bush’s claim of executive privilege on this matter has been completely undercut by her testimony. Sorry, little Bushite.

Horrors of War Watch

The Nation magazine has published interviews with dozens of combat veterans from the Iraq war. In addition to the horrible brutality our military has meted out to the Iraq citizenry, what we have done to these soldiers and marines should also weigh heavily on our national conscience. Here is an excerpt:

"People would make jokes about it, even before we'd go into a raid, like, 'Oh fuck, we're gonna get the wrong house'. Cause it would always happen. We always got the wrong house."

"I'll tell you the point where I really turned... [there was] this little, you know, pudgy little two-year-old child with the cute little pudgy legs and she has a bullet through her leg... An IED [improvised explosive device] went off, the gun-happy soldiers just started shooting anywhere and the baby got hit. And this baby looked at me... like asking me why. You know, 'Why do I have a bullet in my leg?'... I was just like, 'This is, this is it. This is ridiculous'."

"I guess while I was there, the general attitude was, 'A dead Iraqi is just another dead Iraqi... You know, so what?'... [Only when we got home] in... meeting other veterans, it seems like the guilt really takes place, takes root, then."

"A lot of guys really supported that whole concept that if they don't speak English and they have darker skin, they're not as human as us, so we can do what we want."

Heaven help us.