Rachel reports on the dust up over Phil Gramm’s statement that Americans need to stop whining about the economy. Johnathon Alter weighs in.
Countdown: O’Reilly Factor Attacks Jesse Jackson
Rachel reports on Fox News’ decision to give Jesse Jackson’s recording to the O’Reilly Factor and the way the story was handled by them where they said they had more of the tape but refused to air what they had, and their record of going after Jesse Jackson. Greg Mitchell weighs in.
Double Talk Express on Women’s Issues
Rachel reports on the conficting statements made by Carly Fiorina and John McCain on birth control and viagra and the campaign’s attempt to mask it’s extremely far right stances on women’s health issues. Chris Hayes from The Nation weighs in.
Iraq is now demanding a firm date for complete withdrawal of all foreign troops before they will sign a security agreement with the Bush administration. Bushco is refusing, of course, because they truly don’t care about anybody’s objectives but their own. But what did the Pretender-in-Chief say back in April of 2007 during an Interview with Charlie Rose?
Just more Bushco propaganda, no doubt.
Go here for the full video interview with Charlie Rose: http://www.charlierose.com
Enter “George W. Bush” in the search box. Scroll 11 minutes into the video for the quote about leaving Iraq.
And here’s an interesting piece on this subject that I came across today:
On July 9, 2008, 69 members of the U.S. Senate voted to abolish the 4th amendment and protect the President of the United States and his friends from illegal activities perpetrated upon the people of the United States in direct violation of the United States Constitution.
28 Senators voted NO. This is what some of them had to say about HR 6304.
On July 9, 2008, 69 members of the U.S. Senate voted to abolish the 4th amendment and protect the President of the United States and his friends from illegal activities perpetrated upon the people of the United States in direct violation of the United States Constitution.
28 Senators voted NO. This is what a few of them had to say about HR 6304.
(Pay careful attention to the remarks by Sen. Feingold about an Obama lead revolt to fix the FISA Act. Barack Obama voted “YES” on HR6304. Is Feingold living in the same reality that the rest of us are? Shouldn’t Obama have voted “NO”? You decide!)
As students of geopolitics, we at Stratfor tend not to get overexcited when this or that plan for regional peace is tabled. Many of the world’s conflicts are geographic in nature, and changes in government or policy only rarely supersede the hard topography that we see as the dominant sculptor of the international system. Island states tend to exist in tension with their continental neighbors. Two countries linked by flat arable land will struggle until one emerges dominant. Land-based empires will clash with maritime cultures, and so on.
Petit vs. Grand Geopolitic
But the grand geopolitic — the framework which rules the interactions of regions with one another – is not the only rule in play. There is also the petit geopolitic that occurs among minor players within a region. Think of the grand geopolitic as the rise and fall of massive powers-the onslaught of the Golden Horde, the imperial clash between England and France, the U.S.-Soviet Cold War. By contrast, think of the petit geopolitic as the smaller powers that swim alongside or within the larger trends – Serbia versus Croatia, Vietnam versus Cambodia, Nicaragua versus Honduras. The same geographic rules apply, just on a smaller scale, with the added complexity of the grand geopolitic as backdrop.
The Middle East is a region rife with petit geopolitics. Since the failure of the Ottoman Empire, the region has not hosted an indigenous grand player. Instead, the region serves as a battleground for extra-regional grand powers, all attempting to grind down the local (petit) players to better achieve their own aims. Normally, Stratfor looks at the region in that light: an endless parade of small players and local noise in an environment where most trends worth watching are those implanted and shaped by outside forces. No peace deals are easy, but in the Middle East they require agreement not just from local powers, but also from those grand players beyond the region. The result is, well, the Middle East we all know.
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The U.S. Justice Department is considering a change in the grounds on which the FBI can investigate citizens and legal residents of the United States. Till now, DOJ guidelines have required the FBI to have some evidence of wrongdoing before it opens an investigation. The impending new rules, which would be implemented later this summer, allow bureau agents to establish a terrorist profile or pattern of behavior and attributes and, on the basis of that profile, start investigating an individual or group. Agents would be permitted to ask “open-ended questions” concerning the activities of Muslim Americans and Arab-Americans. A person’s travel and occupation, as well as race or ethnicity, could be grounds for opening a national security investigation.
The rumored changes have provoked protests from Muslim American and Arab-American groups. The Council on American Islamic Relations, among the more effective lobbies for Muslim Americans’ civil liberties, immediately denounced the plan, as did James Zogby, the president of the Arab-American Institute. Said Zogby, “There are millions of Americans who, under the reported new parameters, could become subject to arbitrary and subjective ethnic and religious profiling.” Zogby, who noted that the Bush administration’s history with profiling is not reassuring, warned that all Americans would suffer from a weakening of civil liberties.
In fact, Zogby’s statement only begins to touch on the many problems with these proposed rules. The new guidelines would lead to many bogus prosecutions, but they would also prove counterproductive in the effort to disrupt real terror plots. And then there’s Attorney General Michael Mukasey’s rationale for revising the rules in the first place. “It’s necessary,” he explained in a June news conference, “to put in place regulations that will allow the FBI to transform itself as it is transforming itself into an intelligence-gathering organization.” When did Congress, or we as a nation, have a debate about whether we want to authorize the establishment of a domestic intelligence agency? Indeed, late last month Congress signaled its discomfort with the concept by denying the FBI’s $11 million funding request for its data-mining center.
Establishing a profile that would aid in identifying suspects is not in and of itself illegal, though the practice generally makes civil libertarians nervous. When looking for drug couriers, Drug Enforcement Agency agents were permitted by the Supreme Court in United States v. Sokolow (1989) to use indicators such as the use of an alias, nervous or evasive behavior, cash payments for tickets, brief trips to major drug-trafficking cities, type of clothing, and the lack of checked luggage. This technique, however, specifically excluded the use of skin color or other racial features in building the profile.
In contrast, using race and ethnicity as the — or even a — primary factor in deciding whom to stop and search, despite being widespread among police forces, is illegal. Just this spring, the Maryland State Police settled out of court with the ACLU and an African-American man after having been sued for the practice of stopping black and Latino men and searching them for drugs. New Jersey police also got into trouble over stopping people on the grounds of race.
The New Jersey Supreme Court ruled last year in State v. Calvin Lee that a defendant’s plausible allegation that the arrest was initiated primarily because of race would be grounds for discovery: The defense attorney could then request relevant documents from the prosecution that might show discriminatory attitudes and actions on the part of the police. Because racial profiling is most often felt by juries to be inappropriate, its use could backfire on the FBI. Suspects charged on the basis of an investigation primarily triggered by their race could end up being acquitted as victims of government discrimination.
If the aim is to identify al-Qaida operatives or close sympathizers in the United States, racial profiling is counterproductive. Such tiny, cultlike terror organizations are multinational. Richard Reid, the shoe bomber, is a Briton whose father hailed from Jamaica, and no racial profile of him would have predicted his al-Qaida ties. Adam Gadahn, an al-Qaida spokesman, is from a mixed Jewish and Christian heritage and hails from suburban Orange County, Calif. When I broached the topic of FBI profiling to some Muslim American friends on Facebook, a scientist in San Francisco replied, “Profiling Muslims or Arabs will just make al-Qaida look outside Islam for its bombers. There are many other disgruntled groups aside from those that worship Allah.”
It is a mystery why the Department of Justice has not learned the lesson that terrorists are best tracked down through good police work brought to bear on specific illegal acts, rather than by vast fishing expeditions. After Sept. 11, the DOJ called thousands of Muslim men in the United States for what it termed voluntary interviews. Not a single terrorist was identified in this manner, though a handful of the interviewees ended up being deported for minor visa offenses. Once it became clear that the interviews might eventuate in arbitrary actions against them, the willingness of American Muslims to cooperate declined rapidly, and so the whole operation badly backfired.
The fiasco of the prosecution of the Detroit Four should also have been instructive. These four Arab men apparently had the misfortune to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, having moved into an apartment in southwest Detroit recently vacated by a man suspected of al-Qaida ties. The prosecution alleged that innocent vacation videotapes of places such as Disneyland found in the apartment were part of a terror plot, and that vague doodles in a notebook depicted targets abroad such as a Jordanian hospital and Incirlik Air Force Base in Turkey. The prosecution relied heavily on an Arab-American informer who might reduce his own prison sentence for various acts of criminal fraud if a conviction were obtained, and whose testimony against the four suspects evolved dramatically over time. The initial conviction of two of the men, Karim Koubriti and Abdel-Ilah Elmardoudi on charges of giving material support to terrorism, which was hailed as an achievement by the Bush administration, was overturned when the prosecution was discovered to have withheld key exculpatory evidence.
In a startling reversal, two members of the prosecuting team were tried for criminal misconduct, and although they were acquitted, their misconduct was not in question. A Detroit judge even apologized to a third man, who was held for three and a half years on a minor fraud charge and then deported. The entire affair raised questions about whether Muslim-Americans could hope for justice if for any reason they got accidentally caught up in the Justice Department’s frantic search for Muslim terror cells on American soil (very few have been found). The flimsy case against the four men would have had no plausibility at all had they been white upper-middle-class residents of Connecticut.
Not only has the Justice Department engaged in prosecutorial misconduct with regard to Muslims, but at least one FBI operation also appears to have involved actual entrapment. Narseal Batiste, Patrick Abraham, Burson Augustine, Rothschild Augustine, Stanley Grant Phanor, Naudimar Herrera and Lyglenson Lemorin were arrested in June 2006, and accused of being an al-Qaida cell plotting to blow up the Sears Tower in Chicago. Batiste, aka Brother Naz or Prince Manna, led a small cult in a poor neighborhood of Miami called Seas of David, which was apparently an offshoot of the Moorish Temple Science, an African-American folk religion. The cult mixed themes from Judaism, Christianity and Islam but was not identifiably Muslim. The group met in a warehouse and talked big.
The FBI put an informant among them who repeatedly offered them money and equipment for their activities, some of which he appears to have suggested. Batiste maintained in the trial that he was just stringing along the informant in hopes of extracting a promised $50,000, and that he was insincere in pledging allegiance to al-Qaida. When the Justice Department announced the arrest in 2006, the indictment went on about the belief of the group in jihad, or Muslim holy war, but it is a little unlikely that these individuals knew anything about Islam at all. Both attempts to prosecute them ended in mistrials, primarily because the FBI could produce no evidence that when they were arrested they had any weapons or explosives in their possession. They were full of crazy talk, but even some of that was suggested to them by the Department of Justice.
Muslim Americans and Arab-Americans, along with members of some other ethnic groups, are therefore understandably alarmed that the Department of Justice may soon have the tools to bring them under investigation without any proof of wrongdoing. As CAIR national legislative director Corey Saylor noted in a statement, “Any new Justice Department guidelines must preserve the presumption of innocence that is the basis of our entire legal system … Initiating criminal investigations based on racial or religious profiling is both unconstitutional and un-American.” Muslim Americans and Arab-Americans have already suffered from being profiled in a de facto sense. Unsurprisingly, to have that injustice become policy concerns them. The protests would be even louder if so many in the community were not afraid to speak up and draw attention to themselves, as one of my Muslim American Facebook correspondents pointed out to me. Another remarked sadly that not only had George W. Bush not brought democracy to the Muslim Middle East, but he had also damaged its prospects in America itself.
Juan Cole teaches Middle Eastern and South Asian history at the University of Michigan. His most recent book Napoleon’s Egypt: Invading the Middle East (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007) has just been published. He has appeared widely on television, radio and on op-ed pages as a commentator on Middle East affairs, and has a regular column at Salon.com. He has written, edited, or translated 14 books and has authored 60 journal articles. His weblog on the contemporary Middle East is Informed Comment.
FAIR USE NOTICE: This blog may contain copyrighted material. Such material is made available for educational purposes, to advance understanding of human rights, democracy, scientific, moral, ethical, and social justice issues, etc. This constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in Title 17 U.S.C. section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond ‘fair use’, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.
Congressman Ron Paul reports on his fight against the warmongers in Congress and elsewhere who threaten Iran and world peace. From his congressional website, July 9, 2008.
AN ARTICLE OF IMPEACHMENT OF PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH
INTRODUCED BY CONGRESSMAN DENNIS J. KUCINICH
JULY 10, 2008
Resolved, that President George W. Bush be impeached for high crimes and misdemeanors, and that the following Article of Impeachment be exhibited to the United States Senate:
An Article of Impeachment exhibited by the House of Representatives of the United States of America in the name of itself and of the people of the United States of America, in maintenance and support of its impeachment against President George W. Bush for high crimes and misdemeanors.
ARTICLE ONE
DECEIVING CONGRESS WITH FABRICATED THREATS OF IRAQ WMDs TO FRAUDULENTLY OBTAIN SUPPORT FOR AN AUTHORIZATION OF THE USE OF MILITARY FORCE AGAINST IRAQ.
In his conduct while President of the United States, George W. Bush, in violation of his constitutional oath to faithfully execute the office of President of the United States and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in violation of his constitutional duty under Article II, Section 3 of the Constitution “to take care that the laws be faithfully executed,” deceived Congress with fabricated threats of Iraq Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) to fraudulently obtain support for an authorization for the use of force against Iraq and used that fraudulently obtained authorization, then acting in his capacity under Article II, Section II of the Constitution as Commander in Chief, to commit US troops to combat in Iraq.
To gain Congressional support for passage of the Joint Resolution to Authorize the Use of United States Armed Forces Against Iraq, the President made the following material representations to the Congress in SJ Res 45:
1. That Iraq was “continuing to possess and develop a significant chemical and biological weapons capability.…”
2. That Iraq was “actively seeking a nuclear weapons capability. . . .”
3. That Iraq was “continuing to threaten the national security interests of the United States and international peace and security.”
4. That Iraq has demonstrated a “willingness to attack, the United States….”
5. That “members of Al Qaida, an organization bearing responsibility for attacks on the United States, its citizens and interests, including the attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, are known to be in Iraq.. . .”
6. The “attacks on the United States of September 11, 2001, underscored the gravity of the threat that Iraq will transfer weapons of mass destruction to international terrorist organizations. . .”
7. That Iraq “will either employ those weapons to launch a surprise attack against the United States or its Armed Forces or provide them to international terrorists who would do so, . . .”
8. That an “extreme magnitude of harm that would result to the United States and its citizens from such an attack,. .. .”
9. That the aforementioned threats “justify action by the United States to defend itself; . . .”
10. The enactment clause of Section 2 of SJ Res 45, the Authorization of the Use of the United States Armed Forces authorizes the President to “defend the national security interests of the United States against the threat posed by Iraq. . .”
Each consequential representation made by the President to the Congress in SJ Res 45, in subsequent iterations and the final version was unsupported by evidence which was in the control of the White House.
1. Iraq was not “continuing to possess and develop a significant chemical and biological weapons capability. . .”
“A substantial amount of Iraq’s chemical warfare agents, precursors, munitions and production equipment were destroyed between 1991 and 1998 as a result of Operation Desert Storm and United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM) actions. . . . There is no reliable information on whether Iraq is producing and stockpiling chemical weapons or whether Iraq has–or will–establish its chemical warfare agent production facilities.” Defense Intelligence Agency. Iraq–Key WMD Facilities–An Operational Support Study. September 2002. Available: http://www.fas.org/irp/news/2003/06/dod060703.pdf
“Statements by the President and Vice President prior to the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate regarding Iraq’s chemical weapons production capability and activities did not reflect the intelligence community’s uncertainties as to whether such production was ongoing.” Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. Report on Whether Public Statements Regarding Iraq By U.S. Government Officials Were Substantiated By Intelligence Information. June 5, 2008. Available: http://intelligence.senate.gov/080605/phase2a.pdf
“In April and early May 2003, military forces found mobile trailers in Iraq. Although intelligence experts disputed the purpose of the trailers, Administration officials repeatedly asserted that they were mobile biological weapons laboratories. In total, President Bush, Vice President Cheney, Secretary Rumsfeld, Secretary Powell, and National Security Advisor Rice made 34 misleading statements about the trailers in 27 separate public appearances. Shortly after the (mobile trailers were found, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) issued an unclassified white paper evaluating the trailers. The white paper was released without coordination with other members of the intelligence community, however. It was disclosed later that engineers from DIA who examined the trailers concluded that they were most likely used to produce hydrogen for artillery weather balloons. A former senior intelligence official reported that “only one of 15 intelligence analysts assembled from three agencies to discuss the issue in June endorsed the white paper conclusion.” House Committee on Government Reform- Minority Staff. Iraq on the Record: Bush Administration’s Public Statements about Chemical and Biological Weapons. March 16, 2004. Available:http://oversight.house.gov/IraqOnTheRecord/index.asp?viewAll=1&Subject=Chemical+and+Biological+Weapons&submit=display
Former chief of CIA covert operations in Europe, Tyler Drumheller, has said that the CIA had credible sources discounting weapons of mass destruction claims, incuding the primary source of biological weapons claims, an informant who the Germans code-named “Curveball” whom the Germans had informed the Bush Administration was a likely fabricator and including the Niger Yellowcake forgery. Two other former CIA officers confirmed Drumheller’s account to Sidney Blumenthal who reported the story at Salon.com on September 6, 2007.
“In practical terms, with the destruction of the Al Hakam facility, Iraq abandoned its ambition to obtain advanced biological weapons (BW) weapons quickly. The Iraq Survey Group (ISG) found no direct evidence that Iraq, after 1996, had plans for a new BW program or was conducting BW-specific work for military purposes. Indeed, from the mid-1990s, despite evidence of continuing interest in nuclear and chemical weapons, there appears to be a complete absence of discussion or even interest in BW at the Presidential level. In spite of exhaustive investigation, ISG found no evidence that Iraq possessed, or was developing BW agent production systems mounted on road vehicles or railway wagons…. ISG harbors severe doubts about the source’s credibility in regards to the breakout program.” Duelfer, Charles. Comprehensive Report of the Special Advisor to the Director of Central Intelligence on Iraq’s WMD. Available: http://www.lib.umich.edu/govdocs/duelfer.html
“While a small number of old, abandoned chemical munitions have been discovered, ISG judges that Iraq unilaterally destroyed its undeclared chemical weapons stockpile in 1991. There are no credible indications that Baghdad resumed production of chemical munitions thereafter, a policy ISG attributes to Baghdad’s desire to see sanctions lifted, or rendered ineffectual, or its fear of force against it should WMD be discovered.” Duelfer, Charles. Comprehensive Report of the Special Advisor to the Director of Central Intelligence on Iraq’s WMD. Available: http://www.lib.umich.edu/govdocs/duelfer.html
2. Iraq was not “actively seeking a nuclear weapons capability.”
The key finding of the Iraq Survey Group’s (ISG) Report to the Director of Central Intelligence found that “Iraq’s ability to reconstitute a nuclear weapons program progressively decayed after that date. Saddam Husayn (sic) ended the nuclear program in 1991 following the Gulf war. ISG found no evidence to suggest concerted efforts to restart the program.” Duelfer, Charles. Comprehensive Report of the Special Advisor to the Director of Central Intelligence on Iraq’s WMD. Available: http://www.lib.umich.edu/govdocs/duelfer.html
Claims that Iraq was purchasing uranium from Niger were not supported by the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research in the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) of October 2002.
The CIA had warned the British not to claim Iraq was purchasing uranium from Niger prior to the British statement that was later cited by President Bush. George Tenet, July 11, 2003
“One, there is no indication of resumed nuclear activities in those buildings that were identified through the use of satellite imagery as being reconstructed or newly erected since 1998, nor any indication of nuclear-related prohibited activities at any inspected sites. Second, there is no indication that Iraq has attempted to import uranium since 1990. Three, there is no indication that Iraq has attempted to import aluminum tubes for use n centrifuge enrichment. Moreover, even had Iraq pursued such a plan, it would have been — it would have encountered practical difficulties in manufacturing centrifuges out of the aluminum tubes in question. Fourthly, although we are still reviewing issues related to magnets and magnet production, there is no indication to date that Iraq imported magnets for use in a centrifuge enrichment program. As I stated above, the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) will naturally continue further to scrutinize and investigate all of the above issues.” ElBaradei, Mohamed. Director General, International Atomic Energy Agency. Statement to the United Nations Security Council on The Status of Nuclear Inspections in Iraq: An Update. March 7, 2003. Available: http://www.iaea.org/NewsCenter/Statements/2003/ebsp2003n006.shtml
3 Iraq was not “continuing to threaten the national security interests of the United States.”
“Let me be clear: analysts differed on several important aspects of [Iraq’s biological, chemical, and nuclear] programs and those debates were spelled out in the Estimate. They never said there was an ‘imminent’ threat.” Remarks as Prepared for Delivery by Former CIA Director George J. Tenet at Georgetown University. February 5, 2004. Available: http://www.fas.org/irp/cia/product/dci020504.html
“We have been able to keep weapons from going into Iraq . . . . We have been able to keep the sanctions in place to the extent that items that might support weapons of mass destruction have had some controls on them . . . . it’s been quite a success for ten years.” Powell, Colin. Secretary of State. Interview with Face the Nation. February 11, 2001.
“[British Secret Intelligence Service Chief Sir Richard Billing Dearlove] reported on his recent talks in Washington. There was a perceptible shift in attitude. Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy. The NSC had no patience with the UN route, and no enthusiasm for publishing material on the Iraqi regime’s record. There was little discussion in Washington of the aftermath after military action. . . . The Foreign Secretary (of England) said he would discuss this with Colin Powell this week. It seemed clear that Bush had made up his mind to take military action, even if the timing was not yet decided. But the case was thin. Saddam was not threatening his neighbours, and his WMD capability was less than that of Libya, North Korea or Iran. We should work up a plan for an ultimatum to Saddam to allow back in the UN weapons inspectors. This would also help with the legal justification for the use of force.” Rycroft, Matthew; Private Secretary to Prime Minister Tony Blair. Memo to British Ambassador to the United States David Manning. July 23, 2002. Available: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article387374.ece
4. Iraq did not have the “willingness to attack, the United States.”
“The fact of the matter is that both baskets, the UN basket and what we and other allies have been doing in the region, have succeeded in containing Saddam Hussein and his ambitions. His forces are about one-third their original size. They really don’t possess the capability to attack their neighbors the way they did ten years ago.” Powell, Colin. Secretary of State. Transcript of Remarks made to German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer. February 2001. Available: http://www.usembassy-israel.org.il/publish/peace/archives/2001/february/…
The October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) concluded that “Baghdad for now appears to be drawing a line short of conducting terrorist attacks with conventional or [chemical or biological weapons] against the United States, fearing that exposure of Iraqi involvement would provide Washington a stronger case for making war.” Available: http://www.globalsecurity.org/intell/library/reports/2002/nie_iraq_octob…
5. Iraq had no connection with the attacks of 9/11, or with al-Qaida’s role in 9/11.
“The report [of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence] documents significant instances in which the Admnistration went beyond what the Intelligence Community knew or believed in making public claims, most notably on the false assertion that Iraq and al-Qaida had an operational partnership and joint involvement in carrying out the attacks of September 11th. The President and his advisors undertook a relentless public campaign in the aftermath of the attacks to use the war against al-Qaida as a justification for overthrowing Saddam Hussein. Representing to the American people that the two had an operational partnership and posed a single, indistinguishable threat was fundamentally misleading and led the Nation to war on false premises.” Senator John D. Rockefeller IV. Chairman, Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. Additional Views of Chairman John D. Rockefeller IV. Page 90. Available: http://intelligence.senate.gov/080605/phase2a.pdf
Richard Clarke’s memo of September 18, 2001, titled Survey of Intelligence Information on Any Iraq Involvement in the September 11 Attacks found no “compelling case” that Iraq had either planned or perpetrated the attacks, and that there was no confirmed reporting on Saddam cooperating with Bin Laden on unconventional weapons http://www.9-11commission.gov/report/911Report.pdf (page 334).
On September 17, 2003, President Bush said: “No, we’ve no evidence that Saddam Hussein was involved with September the 11th. What the vice president said was is that he (Saddam) has been involved with al-Qaida.” Available: http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/140133.bushiraq18.html
On June 16, 2004, a Staff Report from the 9/11 Commission stated: “There has been reports that contacts between Iraq and al Qaeda also occurred after bin Laden had returned to Afghanistan [in 1996], but they do not appear to have resulted in a collaborative relationship. . . . Two senior bin Laden associates have adamantly denied that any ties existed between al Qaeda and Iraq. We have no credible evidence that Iraq and al Qaeda cooperated on attacks against the United States.” Available: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A46254-2004Jun16.html
“Intelligence provided by former undersecretary of defense Douglas J. Feith to buttress the White House case for invading Iraq included “reporting of dubious quality or reliability” that supported the political views of senior administration officials rather than the conclusions of the intelligence community, according to a report by the Pentagon’s inspector general.
“Feith’s office ‘was predisposed to finding a significant relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda,’ according to portions of the report, released yesterday by Sen. Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.). The inspector general described Feith’s activities as ‘an alternative intelligence assessment process.’” Pincus, Walter and Smith, R. Jeffrey. “Official’s Key Report On Iraq Is Faulted, ‘Dubious’ Intelligence Fueled Push for War.” Washington Post. February 9, 2007. A1.
6. Iraq possessed no weapons of mass destruction to transfer to anyone.
Iraq possessed no weapons of mass destruction to transfer. Furthermore, available intelligence information found that the Iraq regime would only transfer weapons of mass destruction to terrorist organizations if under severe threat of attack by the United States:
According to information in the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iraq that was available to the Administration at the time they were seeking Congressional support for the authorization of the use of force against Iraq, the Iraq regime would transfer weapons to a terrorist organization only if “sufficiently desperate” because it feared that “an attack that threatened the survival of the regime were imminent or unavoidable. . . ”
“Iraq probably would attempt clandestine attacks against the US Homeland if Baghdad feared an attack that threatened the survival of the regime were imminent or unavoidable, or possibly for revenge. Such attacks – more likely with biological than chemical agents – probably would be carried out by special forces or intelligence operatives.
“The Iraqi Intelligence Service (IIS) probably has been directed to conduct clandestine attacks against US and Allied interests in the Middle East in the event the United States takes action against Iraq. The IIS probably would be the primary means by which Iraq would attempt to conduct any CBW attacks on the US Homeland, although we have no specific intelligence information that Saddam’s regime has directed attacks against US territory.
“Saddam, if sufficiently desperate, might decide that only an organization such as al-Qa’ida – with worldwide reach and extensive terrorist infrastructure, and already engaged in a life-or-death struggle against the United States – would perpetrate the type of terrorist attack that he would hope to conduct.
“In such circumstances, he might decide that the extreme step of assisting the Islamist terrorists in conducting a CBW attack against the United States would be his last chance to exact vengeance by taking a large number of victims with him.” Available: http://www.globalsecurity.org/intell/library/reports/2002/nie_iraq_octob…
7. Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction and therefore had no capability of launching a surprise attack against the United States or its Armed Forces or provide them to international terrorists who would do so. . .”
Iraq possessed no weapons of mass destruction to transfer. Furthermore, available intelligence information found that the Iraq regime would only transfer weapons of mass destruction to terrorist organizations if under severe threat of attack by the United States:
According to information in the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iraq that was available to the Administration at the time they were seeking Congressional support for the authorization of the use of force against Iraq, the Iraq regime would transfer weapons to a terrorist organization only if “sufficiently desperate” because it feared that “an attack that threatened the survival of the regime were imminent or unavoidable…” October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq. Available: http://www.globalsecurity.org/intell/library/reports/2002/nie_iraq_octob…
“Iraq probably would attempt clandestine attacks against the US Homeland if Baghdad feared an attack that threatened the survival of the regime were imminent or unavoidable, or possibly for revenge. Such attacks – more likely with biological than chemical agents – probably would be carried out by special forces or intelligence operatives.”
“The Iraqi Intelligence Service (IIS) probably has been directed to conduct clandestine attacks against US and Allied interests in the Middle East in the event the United States takes action against Iraq. The IIS probably would be the primary means by which Iraq would attempt to conduct any CBW attacks on the US Homeland, although we have no specific intelligence information that Saddam’s regime has directed attacks against US territory.”
“Saddam, if sufficiently desperate, might decide that only an organization such as al-Qa’ida – with worldwide reach and extensive terrorist infrastructure, and already engaged in a life-or-death struggle against the United States – would perpetrate the type of terrorist attack that he would hope to conduct.”
“In such circumstances, he might decide that the extreme step of assisting the Islamist terrorists in conducting a CBW attack against the United States would be his last chance to exact vengeance by taking a large number of victims with him.”
As reported in the Washington Post on March 1, 2003, in 1995, Saddam Hussein’s son-in-law, Hussein Kamel had informed US and British intelligence officers that “all weapons–biological, chemical, missile, nuclear were destroyed.” Lynch, Colum. “Iraqi Defector Claimed Arms Were Destroyed by 1995.” Washington Post. A15. March 1, 2003.
“A substantial amount of Iraq’s chemical warfare agents, precursors, munitions and production equipment were destroyed between 1991 and 1998 as a result of Operation Desert Storm and United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM) actions. . . . There is no reliable information on whether Iraq is producing and stockpiling chemical weapons or whether Iraq has–or will–establish its chemical warfare agent production facilities.” Defense Intelligence Agency. Iraq–Key WMD Facilities–An Operational Support Study. September 2002. Available: http://www.fas.org/irp/news/2003/06/dod060703.pdf
8. There was not a real risk of an “extreme magnitude of harm that would result to the United States and its citizens from such an attack” because Iraq had no capability of attacking the United States.
“Containment has been a successful policy, and I think we should make sure that we continue it until such time as Saddam Hussein comes into compliance with the agreements he made at the end of the (Gulf) War. . . . [Iraq is] not threatening America.” Powell, Colin. Secretary of State.
9. The aforementioned evidence did not “justify the use of force by the United States to defend itself” because Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction, or have the intention or capability of using the non-existent WMD’s against the United States.
10. Since there was no threat posed by Iraq to the United States, the enactment clause was predicated on lying to Congress.
Congress relied on the information provided to it by the President of the United States. Congress provided the President with the authorization to use military force that he requested. As a consequence of the fraudulent representations made to the Congress, the United States Armed Forces, under the direction of George Bush as Commander in Chief, pursuant to Section 3 of the Authorization for the Use of Force which President Bush requested, invaded Iraq and occupies it to this day, at the cost of 4,116 lives of US service men and women, injuries to over 30,000 of our troops, the deaths of over 1,000,000 innocent Iraqi civilians, the destruction of Iraq, and a long term cost over $3 trillion.
President Bush’s misrepresentations to Congress to induce passage of a use of force resolution is subversive of the Constitutional system of checks and balances, destructive of Congress’ sole prerogative to declare war under Article I Section 8 of the Constitution, and is therefore a High Crime. An even greater offense by the President of the United States occurs in his capacity as Commander in Chief, because he knowingly placed the men and women of the United States Armed Forces in harm’s way, jeopardizing their lives and their families’ future, for reasons that to this date have not been established in fact.
In all of these actions and decisions, President George W. Bush has acted in a manner contrary to his trust as President and Commander in Chief, and subversive of constitutional government, to the prejudice of the cause of law and justice and to the manifest injury of the people of the United States and of those members of the Armed Forces who put their lives on the line pursuant to the falsehoods of the President. Wherefore, President George W. Bush, by such conduct, is guilty of an impeachable offense warranting removal from office.
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Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said this morning that the House Judiciary Committee may hold hearings on an impeachment resolution offered by Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio).
Kucinich is expected to offer a “privileged resolution” this afternoon calling on the House to look at whether President Bush should be removed from office for lying to Congress and the American public when he sought congressional approval back in 2002 for taking military action to invade Iraq and overthrow Saddam Hussein.
FAIR USE NOTICE: This blog may contain copyrighted material. Such material is made available for educational purposes, to advance understanding of human rights, democracy, scientific, moral, ethical, and social justice issues, etc. This constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in Title 17 U.S.C. section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond ‘fair use’, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.
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Updated
Rep. Dennis J. Kucinich: “Impeach President George W. Bush!”
On July 10, 2008, a 2 PM press conference was called, on Capitol Hill, by Rep. Dennis J. Kucinich (D-OH). At that time, he explained that later in the afternoon he intended to offer in the House of Representatives a single Resolution entitled, “An Article of Impeachment of President George W. Bush.” Rep. Kucinich charged that President Bush had “fraudulently obtained” authority from the U.S. Congress “to commit U.S. troops to combat in Iraq.” He detailed, for the media, some of the lies that led the country into that immoral and illegal conflict. Rep. Kucinich underscored: “I believe in the Constitution!”
In speeches delivered Tuesday, Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson outlined the ruthless class policy being carried out to place the burden for the financial and housing crisis on the backs of working people.
Bernanke indicated that the Fed would extend its policy of offering unlimited loans to major Wall Street investment banks. The provision of Fed funds to non-commercial banks and brokerage firms, a departure from the Fed’s legal mandate without precedent since the Great Depression, is part of a policy of bailing out the banking system to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars. The Fed announced its loan program for investment banks last March when it dispensed $29 billion to JPMorgan Chase as part of a rescue operation to prevent the collapse of Bear Stearns.
In his speech, Treasury Secretary Paulson acknowledged that home foreclosures in 2007 reached 1.5 million and predicted another 2.5 million homes would be foreclosed in 2008. But he made clear that nothing would be done to save the vast majority of distressed homeowners from being thrown onto the street.
Paulson, the former CEO of Goldman Sachs, said that “many of today’s unusually high number of foreclosures are not preventable.” With a callous indifference reminiscent of Marie Antoinette’s “Let them eat cake,” he went on to say that “some people took out mortgages they can’t possibly afford and they will lose their homes. There is little public policymakers can, or should, do to compensate for untenable financial decisions.”
In other words, low-income home owners who were lured into high-interest mortgages by predatory mortgage companies and banks are getting their just deserts! Of course, the Wall Street CEOs and big investors who made billions of dollars by speculating on these loans, creating a vast edifice of fictitious capital that was bound to collapse, are not to be held accountable for any “untenable financial decisions.” On the contrary, they are to be subsidized with hundreds of billions of dollars of credit, ultimately to be paid for by public funds.
According to press reports, Rush Limbaugh will be making $38 million a year.
For eight years.
Rush is making this money by being a radio talk show host.
On public property.
That would be – the public airwaves.
Owned by the American people.
For which Rush – and his affiliated companies – pay no rent.
Rush Limbaugh is on welfare.
Corporate welfare.
The public airwaves belong to the American people.
The Federal Communications Commission is supposed to be our trustee.
The people are the landlords.
The radio and TV stations and the corporate giants who own them are the tenants.
Rush’s show is syndicated on over 650 radio stations.
Rush has enormous leverage over these stations.
They pay no rent.
And therefore, he pays no rent.
Here’s the problem:
Since the Radio Act was passed in 1927, the corporate tenants have been more organized and more powerful than the tens of millions of listeners and viewers.
The result?
Rush Limbaugh and his corporation get to use the public’s valuable property for free.
No payment of rent.
Zero.
Nada.
Nothing.
This freeloading on the backs of the American people is called corporate welfare.
Rush Limbaugh is the Kingboy of corporatist radio.
And it’s past time he set a corporatist example for his peers and –
pay rent to the American people for using their property.
It’s past time Rush Limbaugh takes himself off the corporate welfare rolls.
Rush need not wait for the FCC and Congress to do the right thing and order him to pay.
He can lead by example.
And pay voluntary rent – for the hours and hours every month Rush occupies on the hundreds of stations that carry his show every weekday.
And by the way, this fits well within Rush’s so-called conservative philosophy.
Payment of rent for the use of public airwaves owned by the American people is the conservative position.
Real conservatives oppose corporate welfare.
Note the Cato Institute’s position.
Real corporatists feed off the public trough – from the hundreds of billions of dollars in corporate welfare gushing out of Washington, D.C. every year – your tax dollars.
So, Rush, today I ask you – which side are you on?
Freeloading?
Or paying rent for the public property you have been using free for so many years?
Today, I mailed a letter to Rush asking him to get off welfare.
Thursday, July 10, 2008 at 12:00:00 AM News Release
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Chris Driscoll, 202-360-3273, chris@votenader.org
Rush Limbaugh
The Rush Limbaugh Show
2 Penn Plaza
New York, NY 10121
Dear Mr. Limbaugh,
The Associated Press reports your new contract with Premiere Radio Networks will enrich you with at least $38 million a year over the next eight years. You are making this money on the public property of the American people for which you pay no rent.
You, Rush Limbaugh, are on welfare.
As you know, the public airwaves belong to the American people. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is supposed to be our trustee in managing this property. The people are the landlords and the radio and TV stations and affiliated companies are the tenants.
The problem is that since the Radio Act of 1927 these corporate tenants have been massively more powerful in Washington, DC than the tens of millions of listeners and viewers. The result has been no payment of rent by the stations for the value of their license to broadcast. You and your company are using the public’s valuable property for free. This freeloading on the backs of the American people is called corporate welfare.
It is way past due for the super-rich capitalist–Rush Limbaugh from Cape Girardeau, Missouri–to get himself off big time welfare. It is way past due for Rush Limbaugh as the Kingboy of corporatist radio to set a capitalist example for his peers and pay rent to the American people for the very lucrative use of their property.
You need not wait for the broadcast industry-indentured FCC and Congress to do the right thing. You can lead by paying a voluntary rent–determined by a reputable appraisal organization–for the time you use on the hundreds of stations that carry your words each weekday.
Payment of rent for the use of public airwaves owned by the American people is the conservative position. Real conservatives oppose corporate welfare. Real corporatists feed voraciously from hundreds of billions of dollars in corporate welfare gushing out of Washington, DC yearly.
Whose side are you on? Freeloading? Or paying rent for the public property you have been using free for many years?
I look forward to your response.
Sincerely yours,
Ralph Nader
The Nader/Gonzalez Campaign addresses these and other issues Obama and McCain have taken “off the table.” For a full list of “on the table” topics see: VoteNader.org
Water has been found conclusively for the first time inside ancient moon samples brought back by Apollo astronauts. The discovery may force scientists to rethink the lunar past and future, although uncertainty remains about how much water exists and whether future explorers could extract it.
The water was found inside volcanic glass beads, which represent solidified magma from the early moon’s interior. The news swept through much of the scientific community even before being detailed in the journal Nature this week.
Dandelion Salad 