I just thought that I would mention that going to Google and typing in "Impeach
Bush," brought up more then 16,000 hits.
Almost everyone on the internet is aware of efforts to impeach George W. Bush.
But who would have guessed that Google would have 16,000 sites on the subject?
Clearly the many sins of the current president are making an impact upon Americans.
The extensive protests against the Iraqi invasion, the campaigns to repeal
the Patriot Act, the constant flow of information from IndyMedia sources that
point out the stream of lies by this administration, all are adding up to
a strong reaction against Bush. Is it strong enough to overcome the mainstream
media propaganda?
Here is a particularly strong editorial supporting impeachment. Please read
it carefully.
Unidentified Cutting Edge Reader
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
THEY IMPEACH MURDERERS, DON'T THEY?
Mon Jun 16, 1:47 PM ET
By Ted Rall
Bush Must Step Down
NEW YORK--George W. Bush told us that Iraq (news - web sites) and Al Qaeda were working together. They weren't. He repeatedly implied that Iraq had had something to do with 9/11. It hadn't. He claimed to have proof that Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) possessed banned weapons of mass destruction. He didn't. As our allies watched in horror and disgust, Bush conned us into a one-sided war of aggression that killed and maimed thousands of innocent people, destroyed billions of dollars in Iraqi infrastructure, cost tens of billions of dollars, cost the lives of American soldiers, and transformed our international image as the world's shining beacon of freedom into that of a marauding police state. Presidents Nixon and Clinton rightly faced impeachment for comparatively trivial offenses; if we hope to restore our nation's honor, George W. Bush too must face a president's gravest political sanction.
As the Bush Administration sold Congress and the public on the "threat"
posed by Saddam Hussein last winter, White House flack Ari Fleischer (news -
web sites) assured the American people: "The President of the United States
and the Secretary of Defense would not assert as plainly and vocally as they
have that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction if it was not true and if they
did not have a solid basis for saying it." That's unambiguous rhetoric.
But since allied occupation forces have failed to find WMDs, Bush is backtracking:
"I am absolutely convinced with time we'll find out that they did have
a weapons program," the C-in-C now says.
What's next? Claiming that Saddam had WMDs because, you know, you could just
feel it?
A ferocious power struggle is taking place between Langley and the White House.
"It's hard to tell if there was a breakdown in intelligence or a breakdown
in the way intelligence was used," says Michele Flournoy of the Center
for Strategic and International Studies. No it's not. Career analysts at the
Central and Defense Intelligence Agencies, furious at Bush for sticking them
with the blame for the weapons scandal, are leaking prewar memoranda that indicate
that the Administration covered up the spooks' assessments, making the case
for war with a pile of lies constructed on a bedrock of oil-fueled greed.
A September 2002 DIA study said that there was "no reliable information
on whether Iraq is producing and stockpiling chemical weapons," but Bush
ignored the report--and told us the exact opposite. After Bush used the discovery
of two alleged mobile weapons labs to claim "we found the weapons of mass
destruction," CIA (news - web sites) "dissenters" shot back that
Bush had lied about their reports and that they "doubted the trailers were
used to make germ agents, not[ing] that the plants lacked gear for steam sterilization,
which is typically necessary for making bioweapons." Defense Secretary
Donald Rumsfeld parried: "Any indication or allegation that the intelligence
was in any way politicized, of course, is just false on its face...We haven't
found Saddam Hussein either, but no one's doubting that he was there."
Rummy also floated the CIA-debunked tale of an Iraq-Al Qaeda link.
Both factions are missing the point.
Calling for a full Congressional investigation, Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI) of the
Armed Services Committee, says: "I think that the nation's credibility
is on the line, as well as Bush's." But not even the discovery of a vast
WMD arsenal should save Bush now. Assuming that one accepts preemption as a
legitimate cause for war--and one ought not--you must possess airtight substantiation
that a nation poses an imminent and significant threat before you drop bombs
on its cities. Evidence that falls short of 100 percent proof, presented in
advance, doesn't pass the pre-empt test.
Bush claimed to have that proof. He said that Iraq could deploy its biological
and chemical weapons with just 45 minutes notice. He painted gruesome pictures
of American cities in ruins, their debris irradiated by an Iraqi "dirty
bomb." It was all a bald-faced lie, and lying presidents get impeached.
George W. Bush, like Richard Nixon, "endeavor[ed] to misuse the Central
Intelligence Agency (news - web sites)." George W. Bush, like Richard Nixon,
"[made] or caus[ed] to be made false or misleading public statements for
the purpose of deceiving the people of the United States." (The legalese
comes from the first Article of Impeachment against Nixon, passed by the House
Judiciary Committee (news - web sites) on July 27, 1974. Faced with certain
impeachment in the House and conviction in the Senate, Nixon resigned two weeks
later.)
In the words of Bill Clinton (news - web sites)'s 1998 impeachment, George W.
Bush "has undermined the integrity of his office, has brought disrepute
on the Presidency, has betrayed his trust as President, and has acted in a manner
subversive of the rule of law and justice, to the manifest injury of the people
of the United States."
Nixon and Clinton escaped criminal prosecution for burglary, perjury and obstruction
of justice. George W. Bush, however, stands accused as the greatest mass murderer
in American history. The Lexington Institute estimates that the U.S. killed
between 15,000 and 20,000 Iraqi troops during the fraudulently justified invasion
of Iraq, plus 10,000 to 15,000 wounded. More than 150 U.S. soldiers were killed,
plus more than 500 injured. A new Associated Press study of Iraqi civilian casualties
confirms at least 3,240 deaths. Although Bush, Rumsfeld, Colin Powell (news
- web sites) and Condoleeza Rice denied such legal niceties to the concentration-camp
inmates captured in their illegal invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan (news -
web sites), these high-ranking Administration henchmen should be quickly turned
over--after impeachment proceedings for what might properly be called Slaughtergate--to
an international tribunal for prosecution of war crimes.
Anything less would be anti-American.
(Ted Rall is the author of "Gas War: The Truth Behind the American Occupation
of Afghanistan," an analysis of the underreported Trans-Afghanistan Pipeline
project and the real motivations behind the war on terrorism. Ordering information
is available at amazon.com and barnesandnoble.com.)