“Impeach Bush,” say two New Mexico lawmakers!!

This is the first legislative attempt, to my knowledge, suggesting that impeachment proceedings should proceed against U.S. President George E. Bush:

SANTA FE (AP) — Two New Mexico lawmakers have introduced a measure calling on Congress to impeach President Bush and Vice President Cheney.

State Sens. John Grubesic of Santa Fe and Gerald Ortiz y Pino of Albuquerque, both Democrats, said the resolution is a serious effort to try to trigger impeachment proceedings.

New Mexico, where lawmakers are meeting until March 17, would be the first state to pass the resolution, they said.

The measure alleges that Bush and Cheney conspired with others to intentionally mislead Congress and the public about the threat posed by Iraq in order to justify the war.

It also cites the administration’s warrantless wiretapping program and alleges the torture of prisoners and the denial of constitutional rights to enemy combatants.

READ MORE HERE

While U.S. Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi has said that “Iimpeachment is off the table,” these two New Mexico Lawmakers, are hoping to change some minds, perhaps Pelosi’s, over time.

After Congress impeached Clinton over his lying about his sex life, shouldn’t we begin to give some thought to doing the same to Bush who has lied about WMD, terrorist connections between Iraq and 9/11, that Congress had the same level of intel that the White House had prior to the Iraq invasion, that nobody could have anticipated that an insurgency could erupt from within Iraq, that the war would cost the U.S. a mere $50 Billion, that the oil revenues in Iraq were adequate to pay us back for the cost of the war, yada yada, ad nauseum, yada yada to as recently as two weeks ago Bush was claiming that the reason for the Iraq War [now Civil War] was that once Iran gets nuclear weapons, Saddam Hussein would have begun to obtain Nuclear weapons, too.

The last lie about Iranian nukes, therefore, Iraqi nukes simply falls flat on its face. Bush should be impeached for this one statement, alone. For this to be a valid reason for the war, we would have to have known about Iranian efforts to obtain nukes before the war. If we had truly known this for a fact at that time, then Iran would have been the natural target for a pre-emptive strike, rather than Iraq.

George W. Bush’s lying has gotten 3,000+ American troops killed, 600,000 Iraqi’s killed, cost the U.S. $800,000,000,000 (800 Billion $$$$$$) (8/10 of one Trillion dollars)!!!!!!! And this is not counting the estimated 1/2 trillion in cost to take care of the returning wounded and disabled U.S. troops over their lifetimes.

Seriously, George W. Bush has lied about some huge things that have had and will have some huge consequences in this, our real world.

If we fail to impeach Bush for his lies then we are saying that it is a hanging offense to lie about one’s private sex life (between consenting adults), but it is okay to cause a civil war, make up shit to get us into wars that will kill U.S. troops and Innocent Iraqi Citizens, and leave our children and grandchildren indebted to pay off our bills for a completely unnecessary war, and leave our military capacity so strained that we wouldn’t be able to fend off a serious attack in any major U.S. city.

Bush hasn’t the guts or the decency to raise taxes on his friends, the real beneficiaries of the war, to avoid draining the country’s wealth, driving us into bankruptcy, and handing our children and grandchildren over into financial slavery to pay for the Bush Follies.

George W. Bush is the liar of largest consequence the U.S. has ever known. We should give serious thought to his coming impeachment.

IRAQ STUDY GROUP REPORT IS RELEASED

Okay here’s my initial thoughts, having downloaded the IRAQ STUDY GROUP REPORT, but not read it, having watched the late morning news, and having watched the Press Conference with Tony Snow. By the way you can download the report, free at the Baker Institute.org – ISG Report Or visit their homepage – BAKER INSTITUTE HOME.

I saw almost none of the presentation to the President, but did see the Tony Snow press conf. He was his typical smug, ape-ish self, stiffarming, denying, and evading nearly every question asked. Judging from Snow, the Bush White House may still be in denial as the the dire situation in Iraq. Snow: “The President believes in the transformational power of liberty.” This is Ideological-Speak for “Hopefully we can find our way through all of this to stay the course.”

Bush is a strongwilled individualist, too much so to rethink this whole scheme of things. Too, putting yourself in Bush’s shoes, this mess is so humiliating and embarassing that it is going to keep him trapped in an angry and defensive mode of thinking. His presidency is not only lameduck, its thought processes are essentially shutdown. This is an embarassment to the United States, that we have one individual so hopelessly out of touch and yet in charge. Hopefully, with some time, he can figure his way out of this funk and move into a mode of dynamic leadership, leading the U.S. into a new diplomatic mode.

Again I’ll say that Snow was definitely stiff-arming the press, as expected, for a President in denial, “We have not been saying, ‘Stay the Course,’ for several months now.” I laughed aloud at this from Snow. They appear to have been living in a parallel universe for some time now. It has been less than one month since we’ve heard, “Stay the Course.” In fact we heard it multiple times from Bush himself only last week on his “diplomatic” trip to the Middle East.

I think it would be helpful to the President for him to stand before the American People in something of an early State of the Union Address on Iraq, and speak some pragmatic, non-ideological truth, apologize, and ask for national cooperation as we try to fix Iraq for the Iraqi People. There is a short window for Bush to seize the day on this mess. Perhaps extend the Iraq Study Group one year at a time, and use some or all of the members as a governing board to oversee the task. He can still pull this thing out of the fire and be a President with an important legacy.

But this President is not a dynamic leader. He’s a Lone Ranger, a unilateralist, a “my way or the highway” cowboy from Texas. Initially, two generals sugested that we need 500,000 troops to invade Iraq. One was fired and one was completely ignored.

Bush will adhere to ideology and refuse a change of course in regards to the Israel-Palestine conflict, the Iraq mess, and probably won’t attempt diplomatic talks with either Iran or Syria.

Based upon Bush’s history as an ideologue, and upon his inept grasp of reality, I am only mildly hopefully for our success in Iraq, or in the recovery of Bush’s administration. This is a failed administration whose only note of accomplishment is the stock market, but this comes at the expense of: 1. a record national debt 2. record national personal debt 3. record trade deficit 4. immigration problems 5. a failed war on terror 6. a failed war in Iraq 6. Bin Laden is still on the loose 7. Al Qaeda is growing 8. global warming 9. American jobs and wages

And finally, short of a totally self-reinvented George W. Bush, we are in dire need of a regime change in the Executive Branch of the U.S. Government. We don’t have the luxury of waiting two years for a new administration. Iraq demands our immediate attention, as do other serious problems.

Please, please, please Mr. President, please prove me wrong.

BUSH’S IRAQ CIVIL WAR

 

BUSH’S IRAQI CIVIL WAR

It’s official, now, contrary to the Bush administration (We’re still winning, ya right.)

NBC, MSNBC characterized it as “civil war” this morning. The Huffington Post and the LA Times began last week.

I said it to myself last September or October, but it may have actually been
so back in the summer (2006). It would depend upon whose definition you
use. By September, 2006, it seemed to have spun into Civil War, purely
looking at the situation, listening to the bodycounts rise, listening to the
Whitehouse/neocon spin versus the reality of the television images, judging from
the gut of the American People. We felt it, we knew it then.

The media coverage of the war has been sanitized from day one, as the
Whitehouse declared the coffins of returning killed American Service Men and
Women to be off limits to the media. The Whitehouse would like to keep
sanitizing the images that we see on the news, but they can no longer do so.

The Bush fellas would very much like to see the declaration of Civil War
stalled until a month or so after the Democrats take over the Congress.
But it won’t wait, Mr. Bush.

Five Sunni insurgency car bombs blowup on Thanksgiving
day in a Shia neighborhood, killing 200, plus or minus. The next day the Shia
militia retaliates, dousing 6 Sunni’s in gasoline, torching and killing them
while the Iraqi army looks on. Next day, RPG’s pound American
positions. The Iraqi Civil War is here, and now.

This in no way resembles the neighborhoods in which either you, Mr. Bush, grew up in. Nor does this scene resemble the neighborhoods of Iraq before you invaded the country, Mr. Bush. These scenes resemble no other neighborhood or street, that I know of, and certainly neither Midland nor Arlington,Texas.

Wake up and see the coffins of American and Iraqi bodies, Mr. Bush. This
THING that is consuming Iraq – it is now a civil war. Your arrogance, deception,
delay, stubbornness, and stupidity created this THING. As you were advised, “You break it, you own it!”
THIS IS HEREBY YOUR IRAQI CIVIL WAR, MR BUSH. Quit being such a coward and own up to the facts.

 

Insurgent activity in Afghanistan has risen fourfold this year

This in from the AP about 2 hours ago:

KABUL, Afghanistan – Insurgent activity in Afghanistan

has risen fourfold this year, and militants now launch more than 600 attacks a month, a rising wave of violence that has resulted in 3,700 deaths in 2006, a bleak new report released Sunday found.

Last year there were 130 insurgent attacks a month in Afghanistan. This year in March there were 300 attacks; and, as of September of this year there were 600 attacks per month. The numbers of attacks per month has quadrupled since last year.

This year there have been 3700 casualties so far. This is 1000 more casualties than we lost in the World Trade Center Attack. And we have another 6 weeks to go this year. While this seems to not be a priority of Bush’s people at this time, perhaps it should be since we played a major part in invading Afghanistan and then in not staying the course long enough there to secure the place from insurgents.

We dropped the ball and walked away from the Afghan playing field somewhere around the halftime. Apparently what happened is that Bush, Rumsfeld, and their business cronies saw larger oil profits to be made in another game that was about to start in another arena. So at the end of halftime the coaches led us out the wrong lockerroom door and into a new arena.

Sure, Monday Morning Quarterbacking is the easiest part of the game, but (dammit!), there were people who saw what was happening at the time. “Aw, hookie on your bahookie, You’re unpatriotic and a terrorist!” That’s what they told anyone who noticed that something was amiss. And we were called traitors.

We were called traitors. And some of the mainstream media and pundits are still saying it. In fact Lynne Cheney, in the week leading to election day, questioned Wolf Blitzer’s intentions by asking him, “Do you want the US to win in Iraq?” Any time the neocons are asked an uncomfortable question, they have this nasty habit of deflection, that implies that the other opponent is less than a loyal American.

The world spectatorship are now clamoring for our return to the Afghan Arena. These are not wargames. This is a real country and the Afghans are real people. We helped create this situation and we have an ethical and moral responsibility to secure the peace in Afghanistan.