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Richard Haut
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Joined: 18 Apr 2004
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Location: Nice, France
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 Posted: Wed Jan 11, 2006 11:21 am Post subject: a bill is in Congress to impeach Bush ? |
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from
http://www.ilcaonline.org/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=2748&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0
What We Don't Know Can Hurt Us
By Dave Lindorff
There is an bill in Congress to investigate Bush for impeachable crimes. Did you know that? If not, maybe you should be asking your local media outlets why you don’t know about it.
Rome--There are now eight members of Congress who have put their names to a bill calling for a special committee of the House to investigate impeachable crimes by the Bush administration. To date, all of them are Democrats.
So far, you'd be hard-pressed to know about any of this--including the very fact that Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.), the low-key and soft-spoken but dedicated ranking minority member of the House Judiciary Committee, had even submitted such a bill--as well as two companion bills calling for censure of both Bush and Cheney for abuse of power.
Apparently in the editorial cloister of our once proud Fourth Estate, where decisions as to what it is safe or appropriate for us in the public to know, it has been determined that we do not need to know that the notion of impeachment of the president is starting to grow.
Most of the major corporate media have yet to let the public know that several respected polls have shown a majority of Americans to favor impeachment if Bush lied about the reasons for going to war against Iraq, which if combined with polls showing that two-thirds of Americans or more think he did lie about those reasons, tells you all you need to know about the public attitude on impeachment.
The same paternalistic and pro-administration mindset was at work when the editor and publisher of the New York Times decided a year ago to squelch for a year a story they had about the NSA warrantless spying program. They felt that we the people didn't need to know about that story in a presidential election year, even if the target of that spying may well have been the administration’s electoral opponents, just as it was in the 1972 Watergate spying scandal.
There is a clear slide towards dictatorship taking place in America. The president, it turns out, has been signing executive letters along with many of the bills Congress passes, essentially asserting that as commander-in-chief in his fake "war" on terror, he reserves the right to ignore those bills. The latest such letter was signed by him as he signed the bill banning torture. In other words, he conceded to the bill, but then said he'll authorize torture anyway if he wants to, in his role as commander in chief.
The beauty of this presidential scam is that, since the "war" on terror will never end, neither will his self-claimed draconian powers. And what is the limit of those powers? Well, basically the limit is whatever Congress and the courts tell him those limits are. And are we seeing Congress and the courts setting any limits? No.
A major part of the problem is that the media that are supposed to inform the American public about what is happening are instead dropping the ball, or even hiding it.
At the moment, I'm in Rome, trying, among other things, to look into one dark corner of the administration's crimes--the forgery of documents designed to make it appear that Iraq had an active nuclear weapons program and was trying to buy uranium. I don't know what I'll be able to find in my too short stay. An Italian parliamentary committee concluded this past fall that the forgeries were the work of long-time right-wing con-man Michael Ledeen--the guy who helped bring us the criminal Iran-Contra arms-for-hostages-and-stinger-missiles deal during the Reagan administration, along with Dewey Claridge (another Iran-Contra veteran), convicted bank swindler Ahmed Chalabi and Frank Brookes, a PR man hired by the Pentagon to promote Chalabi’s CIA-created Iraqi National Congress. That's another story that we didn’t see in most of our corporate media, though, given that all those people are connected tightly to the White House and the Pentagon, it suggests strongly that top White House officials were behind the whole Niger document scam.
If so, it would make Lyndon Johnson's Tonkin Gulf deception seem like child's play (and all by itself would be grounds for impeachment).
I should note that Italy provides a good model of where the U.S. is heading. Here virtually the entire media--and certainly the entire electronic media--is literally owned by the right-wing prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi. Except for some fortunately excellent independent newspapers, like La Repubblica, which did most of the investigative work into the Niger document forgery story, it’s hard to get any information in Italy about what its government is doing. The one advantage Italy has is a genuine political opposition.
At least Italy’s media have an excuse: they’re literally owned by the prime minister. Our media, supposedly independent, only act like Bush owns them.
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Richard Haut has worked with the architectural profession for over 25 years and produces the weekly Richard Haut's Competitions, which has given architects details of many thousands of projects for which they can apply across Britain and Europe. |
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Ed Ziomek
Joined: 07 Jun 2005
Posts: 467
Location: Stamford, Connecticut
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| Posted: Fri Jan 13, 2006 4:39 pm Post subject: Not aware.... but.... |
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Rich... I am not aware of this measure, although I do know that technical impeachable offenses have probably occurred... i.e., the warrantless NSA searches...
If that investigation revealed private political activities were investigated, i.e., Democratic activities, using our security forces, then that effort will gain steam.
But let me ask another question... stupid me... Can we impeach Democratic Senators first?
Based on the abysmal questioning of Alito by Democratic Senators, on what appears to be entirely empty issues (Princeton membership clubs), is this what America has become? Can we impeach Senators first?
I mean, did Alito kill anybody?
Is this the BEST the Democrats can do? Why can't America come up with better Democratic leadership???
If John McCain is my number one good-guy Senator, then John Danforth just became my number 2. What a decent presentation he gave. Presidential material.
I am shocked at how badly the Democrats looked, I really am. Bush is way safe, for the moment.
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SDR
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Joined: 02 Oct 2004
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Location: San Francisco
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| Posted: Fri Jan 13, 2006 5:39 pm Post subject: |
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. .
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"I'm the commander . . . see, I do not need to explain why I say things. That's the interesting thing about being the president. Maybe somebody needs to explain to me why they say something, but I don't feel like I owe anybody an explanation." GWB |
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Richard Haut
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Location: Nice, France
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| Posted: Fri Jan 13, 2006 5:45 pm Post subject: |
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Same in Britain.
The Conservative (opposition) party are irrelevant - and now that has even infected the Liberal Democrats. How is it that Britain and America have such timid politicians all of a sudden ?
My only concern at the moment is that Iran is not attacked - because if it is, we will have a shootin' war.
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Richard Haut has worked with the architectural profession for over 25 years and produces the weekly Richard Haut's Competitions, which has given architects details of many thousands of projects for which they can apply across Britain and Europe. |
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Ed Ziomek
Joined: 07 Jun 2005
Posts: 467
Location: Stamford, Connecticut
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| Posted: Sat Jan 14, 2006 5:49 am Post subject: Ahmadinejad will be replaced internally, or.... |
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Rich and SDR... I have a gut feeling that Ahmadinejad will have an internal "accident", or just be simply removed. He is a tinderbox and has been cautioned by the leading cleric, if not several clerics within Iran.
If a neighborhood bully says... "I will kill your family, blow up your house, and too bad for your neighbors!"... who can fault anyone for taking him out?
Iran wants to move forward, not backwards. I predict an internal, unexplained "mugging", for which the CIA or the Mossad will be blamed, and "nobody saw nothing".
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Richard Haut
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Location: Nice, France
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| Posted: Sat Jan 14, 2006 7:07 am Post subject: |
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You call for the murder of the democratically elected head of a sovereign state ?
The Iranians will defend themselves if attacked.
You must be very proud of the recent USAF bombing raids - women and children killed of course, but it is a novel strategy to attack a friendly nation, isn't it ?
One bombing raid on Pakistan could have been considered hostile, but two begins to look like an act of war.
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Richard Haut has worked with the architectural profession for over 25 years and produces the weekly Richard Haut's Competitions, which has given architects details of many thousands of projects for which they can apply across Britain and Europe. |
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Ed Ziomek
Joined: 07 Jun 2005
Posts: 467
Location: Stamford, Connecticut
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| Posted: Sat Jan 14, 2006 7:43 am Post subject: No. |
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Rich, not me. Ahmadinejad is writing his own ticket.
On the horrible Pakistan situation... 30 women and children, I hear, and no bad guy! Just when I think we have a kinder, gentler, fuzzy-lips administration, BAM! Another debacle.
By the way, I heard a novel explanation for the 250,000 dead in the recent Pakistan earthquake... "The numerous American bunker-buster bombs upset the underlying geologic strata in these mountainous locations, so when an earthquake happened... devastation multiplied."
I thank God for my ignorance, of how American foreign policy thinks we are strengthening Musharraf's position in our favor, not just making more enemies.
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Richard Haut
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| Posted: Sat Jan 14, 2006 8:43 am Post subject: |
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No, Ed - you.
You deliberately misrepresent what Ahmadinejad says.
Anyway, it no longer matters.
The range of countries threatened by the US in just the last week or so is starting to assume bizarre proportions.
Norway.
Holland.
Spain.
Iran of course.
North Korea of course.
Pakistan.
Russia.
China.
The Philippines.
Venezuela.
If one goes back more than a week or ten days, then the list gets lengthier and lengthier.
I am sure that you do thank God for your ignorance.
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Richard Haut has worked with the architectural profession for over 25 years and produces the weekly Richard Haut's Competitions, which has given architects details of many thousands of projects for which they can apply across Britain and Europe. |
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Ed Ziomek
Joined: 07 Jun 2005
Posts: 467
Location: Stamford, Connecticut
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| Posted: Sun Jan 15, 2006 8:14 am Post subject: My Ignorance, fact. |
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Rich. My ignorance? More like my entire life story. My belief system is long ago shattered. Priests? Mullahs? Politicians? Police Officers? Teachers?
But I have my integrity, as I know it. Not saying you are wrong, I can only be "right with myself".
On that note, please educate me on any threats by our government to Norway, Holland, Spain, Pakistan, Russia, China, Philippines. I would be stunned, and I find it hard to believe.
I thought I saw these countries lining up tentatively with the United States on this issue. (a Russian leader did make some terrible and disparaging remarks against our Secretary of State Rice)
Venezuela, Iran, aren't they Democratically elected governments, when did we do anything NICE to them?
North Korea, in the last week?
Lets see this last week's stories... torture, white phosphorous, secret NSA wiretapping on domestics, dirty tricks, mugging and Murder, 30+ innocent civilians dead in Pakistan from air strike..., oh... forgot to mention... tragic story on 3rd generation birth defects from Agent Orange defoilation in VietNam, story on TV... those from the geniuses at work. Not me!
I can only offer you ignorance and two cards short of a full deck in my rafters, should I run for American Foreign Policy Advisor?
PS... there are exceptional people out there, doing exceptional work, in every field I mentioned. I don't know HOW they survive among the chaos and corruption and insanity. Example: NYPD, on top of it all, and they have their limitations too.
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Richard Haut
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| Posted: Sun Jan 15, 2006 10:21 am Post subject: |
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Ed
we all have our areas of ignorance (bias ? who knows).
however it is intention that matters.
Just one example, because it is so bizarre: Norway. Rice threatened Norway with "serious political consequences" after 2 Norwegian Ministers admitted supporting a proposed boycott of Israeli goods.
http://www.aftenposten.no/english/local/article1196096.ece
Russia and Ukraine have a dispute. The Ukrainians were (according to the Russians) taking gas from a pipeline and refusing to pay for it, so the gas was cut off until it is sorted out. Who is right ? I don't know - do you care ? Not really - it is a dispute. But America wades in and starts hurling abuse and threats around.
The other range of US abusive behaviour is out there in the media, including an historic story about relations between the US and New Zealand and how the US resorted immediately to threats for no real reason.
Iran is threatened on an almost daily basis - including with nuclear attack. Why ? The US media sure as hell does not quote the Iranians when they call for a nuclear weapons free Middle East, do they ?
If attacked, the Iranians will defend themselves.
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Richard Haut has worked with the architectural profession for over 25 years and produces the weekly Richard Haut's Competitions, which has given architects details of many thousands of projects for which they can apply across Britain and Europe. |
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Ed Ziomek
Joined: 07 Jun 2005
Posts: 467
Location: Stamford, Connecticut
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| Posted: Tue Jan 17, 2006 6:17 am Post subject: Al Gore's Wonderful Speech Yesterday |
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On Martin Luther King Day, Al Gore delivered a speech for the ages.
Never looking down, almost never pausing, and repeatedly interrupting the applause to politely continue, Al Gore gave what I can only describe as a thunderous criticism for the actions of the President and his administration, AND he blamed basically both sides of the Congressional isle, Democrats and Republicans, for allowing this to happen.
I cannot name all the wonderful quotations he made, but the bottom line is... Are we as Americans going to allow this degeneration of our system to keep on its downward slide? Or are we going to turn it around, like Thomas Jefferson did in his day, like Abraham Lincoln did in his day, and make things right?!
I believe this C-Span televised speech, in the Daughters of the American Revolution Constitutional Hall, Washington DC, will be replayed and replayed.
The crowd only 3-quarters-filled the auditorium, but numerous standing ovations seemed to shake the place down.
Time to stand UP! And wasn't that Martin Luther King Jr. did, all his life?
I think so.
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Richard Haut
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| Posted: Wed Jan 18, 2006 12:34 pm Post subject: |
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The full text of Gore's speech is here:
http://- abuse alert -- abuse alert -/article11584.htm
it is fantastic, but I have to wonder what the poisonous Neo-Cons will do, or try to do, on their way out.
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Richard Haut has worked with the architectural profession for over 25 years and produces the weekly Richard Haut's Competitions, which has given architects details of many thousands of projects for which they can apply across Britain and Europe. |
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Ed Ziomek
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Posts: 467
Location: Stamford, Connecticut
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| Posted: Thu Feb 23, 2006 11:29 am Post subject: Impeachment... Unthinkable Possibility? |
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Rich and others...
Earlier I mentioned that Bush is "way-safe" on impeachment.
With the Dubai port situation, I think we may have a smoking gun. Bush and Rumsfeld and Cheney, I believe, swear they knew nothing of the transaction and agreement.
This is ridiculous. 350,000 phone calls were intercepted... without warrants. How could anyone in their position NOT know?
Again, we are being lied to, I believe, but this one may be the smoking gun.
What is terribly ironic for me, is that I cannot remember, in my lifetime, a more precarious time for America, and how we need an integrity administration, functioning at its HIGHEST capability for America. Have I ever seen a more divisive international and religious climate, short of world religious war, or military war, or nuclear conflagration possibilities?
America absolutely NEEDS an integrity administration, for domestic and international health reasons... not that we ever had it... but I don't think we have it now, at our most critical time.
Notice how the Abramoff NSA issues are almost over? Who cares, when the barn is burning down around us?
Notice how Katrina, still not resolved, is increasingly and tragically forgotten?
Or that the OBL threats are considered redundant blatherings... when they are still a very-real threat?
Or how the Iranian nuclear situation and threats on Israel have become a back-burner issue?
The world is exploding all around us. Muslims killing Muslims, Muslims killing Christians, Christians killing Muslims. Riots and deaths over religious insults.
At the same time our government leaders are operating out of sight... of the oversights!
Now, I know Americans... Republicans and Democrats are stepping up to the plate, offering assistance and healthy criticism when needed... but my worthless opinion is swinging back towards the thought...
Impeachment??? Not unthinkable.
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Richard Haut
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| Posted: Thu Feb 23, 2006 1:25 pm Post subject: |
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Whether impeachment is possible or not, time is running out.
KBR are building concentration camps within the US itself. Iran is guilty of nothing - n-o-t-h-i-n-g. See the article below for the American Fascists' behaviour to Iran.
How Neocons Sabotaged Iran's Help on al-Qaeda
by Gareth Porter
The United States and Iran were on a course to work closely together on the war against al-Qaeda and its Taliban sponsors in Afghanistan in late 2001 and early 2002 – until Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld stepped in to scuttle that cooperation, according to officials who were involved at the time.
After the Sept. 11 attacks, U.S. officials responsible for preparing for war in Afghanistan needed Iran's help to unseat the Taliban and establish a stable government in Kabul. Iran had organized resistance by the Northern Alliance and had provided arms and funding at a time when the United States had been unwilling to do so.
"The Iranians had real contacts with important players in Afghanistan and were prepared to use their influence in constructive ways in coordination with the United States," recalls Flynt Leverett, then senior director for Middle East affairs in the National Security Council (NSC), in an interview with IPS.
In October 2001, as the United States was just beginning its military operations in Afghanistan, State Department and NSC officials began meeting secretly with Iranian diplomats in Paris and Geneva, under the sponsorship of Lakhdar Brahimi, head of the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan. Leverett says these discussions focused on "how to effectively unseat the Taliban and once the Taliban was gone, how to stand up an Afghan government."
It was thanks to the Northern Alliance Afghan troops, which were supported primarily by the Iranians, that the Taliban was driven out of Kabul in mid-November. Two weeks later, the Afghan opposition groups were convened in Bonn under United Nations auspices to agree on a successor regime.
At that meeting, the Northern Alliance was demanding 60 percent of the portfolios in an interim government, which was blocking agreement by other opposition groups. According to U.S. special envoy to Afghanistan James Dobbins, Iran played a "decisive role" in persuading the Northern Alliance delegate to compromise. Dobbins also recalls how the Iranians insisted on including language in the Bonn agreement on the war on terrorism.
The bureaucracy recognized that there was an opportunity to work with Iran not only on stabilizing Afghanistan but on al-Qaeda as well. As reported by the Washington Post on Oct. 22, 2004, the State Department's policy planning staff had written a paper in late November 2001 suggesting that the United States should propose more formal arrangements for cooperation with Iran on fighting al-Qaeda.
That would have involved exchanging intelligence information with Tehran as well as coordinating border sweeps to capture al-Qaeda fighters and leaders who were already beginning to move across the border into Pakistan and Iran. The CIA agreed with the proposal, according to the Post's sources, as did the head of the White House Office for Combating Terrorism, retired Gen. Wayne A. Downing.
But the cooperation against al-Qaeda was not the priority for the anti-Iranian interests in the White House and the Pentagon. Investigative journalist Bob Woodward's book Plan of Attack recounts that Deputy National Security Adviser Stephen J. Hadley, who chaired an interagency committee on Iran policy dealing with issues surrounding Afghanistan, learned that the White House intended to include Iran as a member of the "axis of evil" in Bush's State of the Union message in January.
Hadley expressed reservations about that plan at one point, but was told by Bush directly that Iran had to stay in. By the end of December, Hadley had decided, against the recommendations of the State Department, CIA, and White House counter-terrorism office, that the United States would not share any information with Iran on al-Qaeda, even though it would press the Iranians for such intelligence, as well as to turn over any al-Qaeda members it captured to the appropriate home country.
Soon after that decision, hardliners presented Iranian policy to Bush and the public as hostile to U.S. aims in Afghanistan and refusing to cooperate with the war on terror – the opposite of what officials directly involved had witnessed.
On Jan. 11, 2002, the New York Times quoted Pentagon and intelligence officials as saying that Iran had given "safe haven" to fleeing al-Qaeda fighters in order to use them against the United States in post-Taliban Afghanistan. That same day, Bush declared "Iran must be a contributor in the war against terror."
"Our nation, in our fight against terrorism, will uphold the doctrine of 'either you're with us or against us,'" he said.
Officials who were familiar with the intelligence at that point agree that the "safe haven for al-Qaeda" charge was not based on any genuine analysis by the intelligence community.
"I wasn't aware of any intelligence supporting that charge," recalls Dobbins, who was still the primary point of contact with Iranian officials about cooperation on Afghanistan. "I certainly would have seen it had there been any such intelligence. Nobody told me they were harboring al-Qaeda."
Iran had already increased its troop strength on the Afghan border in response to U.S. requests. As the Washington Post reported in 2004, Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Javad Zarif brought a dossier to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan in early February with the photos of 290 men believed to be al-Qaeda members who already been detained fleeing from Afghanistan.
Later, hundreds of al-Qaeda and Taliban detainees were repatriated to Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, and other Arab and European countries, according to news reports.
The hardliners would complain that the Iranians did not turn over any top al-Qaeda leaders. But the United States had just rejected any exchange of information with the very officials with whom it needed to discuss the question of al-Qaeda – the Iranian intelligence and security ministry.
The same administration officials told the Times that Iran was seeking to exert its influence in border regions in western Afghanistan by shipping arms to its Afghan allies in the war against the Taliban and that this could undermine the interim government and Washington's long-term interests in Afghanistan.
But in March 2002, Iranian official met with Dobbins in Geneva during a UN conference on Afghanistan's security needs. Dobbins recalls that the Iranian delegation brought with it the general who had been responsible for military assistance to the Northern Alliance during the long fight against the Taliban.
The general offered to provide training, uniforms, equipment, and barracks for as many as 20,000 new recruits for the nascent Afghan military. All this was to be done under U.S. leadership, Dobbins recalls, not as part of a separate program under exclusive Iranian control.
"The Iranians later confirmed that they did this as a gesture to the United States," says Dobbins.
Dobbins returned to Washington to inform key administration officials of what he regarded as an opportunity for a new level of cooperation in Afghanistan. He briefed then-Secretary of State Colin Powell, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, and Rumsfeld personally. "To my knowledge, there was never a response," he says.
(Inter Press Service)
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Richard Haut has worked with the architectural profession for over 25 years and produces the weekly Richard Haut's Competitions, which has given architects details of many thousands of projects for which they can apply across Britain and Europe. |
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Ed Ziomek
Joined: 07 Jun 2005
Posts: 467
Location: Stamford, Connecticut
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| Posted: Sun Mar 12, 2006 12:28 pm Post subject: Critical crossroads... and no signposts.... |
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I think I am going to take a opinion break. I just saw on Cspan2 a speaker talking about the Iranian people not condoining what is happening with their own government, at the same time, not criticizing their government's involvement with nuclear research.
So it seems the political powers in Tehran are not closely in touch with their own people, and fear a revolt of sorts... according to the speaker, who by the way, basically thought that Washington was ignoring these signals, demonizing all Iranians in the process.
I don't have to add the American situation, which we have discussed.
Net, net... who is in charge of this ship? Where the heck are we going? Is the world safer today rather than 9/11, or have we slid into a more unstable situation, globally? Do politicians work to mend fences, or do they plot to keep things unstable? Do we know who are friends are, or is the whole world an enemy, now?
Is common sense at work, or is brinkmanship?
I am totally, totally, lost on this one. What American will step up and set things on a harmonious, common sense, path?
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