Not just any public pronouncement, the most important public announcement the President makes! The friggin State of the friggin Union! If there was EVER a time to be sure all the t’s are crossed and the i’s dotted, this is it. It is his constitutional DUTY to make this speech as accurate and well-researched as possible. This is not some campaign rally, this is the friggin State of the Union addresss! This is a BIG DEAL! A VERY BIG DEAL!
Enjoy,
Steven
Maybe I should throw this in a new thread (or if someone else wants to do that then go for it):
Iran Samples Show Enriched Uranium
So…Reuters just reported on evidnece that Iran is probably enriching uranium. Bush included Iran in his ‘Axis of Evil’. If this turns out to be true Bush has better evidence for Iran attempting to possess nukes than Iraq. In order for Bush to have the strength of his convictions he needs to attack Iran. Otherwise his attack on Iraq will have been shown to be a political ploy and not based on any moral or principled foundation whatsoever.
I think I’m gonna be sick (wondering if Bush would attack Iran to save his political ass…I don’t have much faith and our army is already over there).
[quote]
Whack-a-Mole: Regardless of your opinion on what constitutes good reasons for attacking Iraq the fact remains that the President and/or his staff lied to you.
Further, he lied to Congress which has the responsibility for determining if the President can have a limited war. (I sure hope I know what I am talking about…)
One crime could possibly to racketeering. If he or other members of the Administration profitted from a war that was a set-up, that would be racketeering. Of course that’s a mighty big “if.”
I am a liberal Democrat and of course the candidates will try to make the most of this. But they are not without justification. I no longer think that it is totally partisan. I have heard concerned comments from Republicans on news interviews which I cannot cite.
I’m not so concerned about impeachment as I am about actually removing him from office before he makes the situation even worse. If that means that he doesn’t run for re-election, that would be fine with me. The investigations, hearings, trial, impeachment and removal from office would probably take longer.
Mole: Regarding the Iran uranium. It’s just like NK. We KNOW the NK-ns were trying build nukes. But the decision to attack has to take many things into account:
Saying the if Bush attacked Iraq over nukes, he must attack Iran if Iran has nukes is simply a non sequitur.
One more thing, removing Bush would simply make Cheney the President. So what? Gotta impeach and convict them simultaneously, and hope for better from Hastert. For that matter, the House can pick anyone it wants as speaker, not necessarily one of their own, and at any time. Are we prepared for President DeLay?
The political (as in statesmanship) value of discussing impeachment seriously, in terms of modifying their future behavior, is probably the best we can hope for. But it would be a mistake to actually do it.
Well, according to [ur=“http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=33615”]Worldnetdaily, the “botched post-war situation” was planned ahead of time by Saddam’s regime in case of his overthrow. If that’s true, then allegations of it being due to incompetence are wholly unfounded.
I don’t think it’s a non sequitir at all. I’ll grant I put it in simplistic terms and much would have to be considered but it SHOULD be seriously considered…at least if Bush intends America to have the strength of its convictions.
We have North Korea who is believed to already possess nukes and at the least hs openly admitted to their development.
We now have Iran that shows evidence of developing nukes.
We have Iraq that has no evidence of developing nukes (at least post Desert Storm).
Who did the US attack based in large part on supposedly attempting to obtain nuclear arms? The country with the least evidence to support that claim but the country that we already knew had a pushover for an army.
If the US doesn’t engage in serious brinksmanship with Iran then the US could rightly be labelled a bully. A bully that throws its weight around for its own political ends as if it didn’t share the world with others and a bully with a glass jaw that doesn’t have the stomach for a real fight.
Do I want to attack Iran? Certainly not. I strongly suspect it’d be a much harder fight than Iraq and would certainly inflame the Muslim world more than they are.
What I see is a corner that Bush has backed the US into. Either we are a country that backs-up the principles it espouses or shows itself to be craven and 100% on the lookout for its own self-interest.
In short we can talk the talk but won’t walk the walk.
The UIs has known/suspected for a long time that Iran has been pursuing nuclear capability w/ the help of Russia and China. Iran has been purchasing missile technology from NK as well.
Is that bad? Shouldn’t the expectation of easy victory make war more attractive?
Bob Graham is a homer for the constituency that elects him to office. He would quack like a duck if they told him to.
War is not supposed to be attractive. EVER.
It’s a last resort. This has been common knowledge from Sun-Tse’s days.
If you MUST engage in war then certainly you want the easiest time of it you possibly can and stomp your enemies quickly.
The point I am making is about WHY you choose to go to war. Is America an empire that will reach out take what it wishes if the plunder (oil in Iraq’s case) is worthwhile and the expense not too much?
Or is America about fighting evil and protecting freedom and liberty?
Bush’s rhetoric would have us believe the latter and Americans can walk around feeling good about themselves for having done a noble thing.
Unfortunately the actions of the US indicate the former. It’s about political gain and business greediness (empire). Wasn’t Haliburton up for a juicy contract in Iraq recently?
Article I
The impeachment process also depends on precedent. What, you may ask, is the most recent precedent?
In other words, Bill Clinton lied to a mere grand jury.
President Bush was performing his constitutional duty as described in Article II, Section 3 of the United States Constitution. When sworn in as President, he declared he would uphold the Constitution and his office.
IF it can be shown that he lied, then it is obvious that Bush lied while performing a duty required by the Constitution. Lying to Congress is a felony to begin with; lying while performing one’s own Constitution duty is, well, frightening.
Some of you may recall a fellow named John Poindexter, who was slapped with five felony counts and sentenced to six months at Club Fed for lying to Congress. (Never mind the fact that he’s now working for the Bush Administration on the Total Information Awareness Project.)
Article II
But that’s not all, because were it not for the fortuitous hari kari of the Director of the CIA, one might begin to wonder exactly how and why information which was pulled from a speech the President gave the year before was suddenly included in the SOTU.
Because if George Tenet isn’t solely responsible for including that sixteen word sentence, then the question becomes who pressured the CIA to approve it?
And it looks like Tenet’s seppuku wasn’t as complete as we might have thought, since he just admitted to the Senate that he didn’t even know about the sentence until after it was uttered on the floor of Congress.
Other reports leaking out of that closed hearing go farther, saying that Tenet testified that “White House official insisted that President Bush’s State of the Union address include an assertion about Saddam Hussein’s nuclear intentions that had not been verified.”
Oops. We can expect a retraction on that statement, because if it’s true, then that’s solid gold evidence of manipulation of an intelligence agency, which takes us back to another near-precedent, the articles of impeachment drafted for Richard Nixon:
And as I have pointed out before, Nixon’s misuse of an intelligence agency was in a mere cover-up of a domestic crime. Bush’s potential misuse of the CIA in a matter of national security is… frightening.
But, having said all that, it’s also worth pointing out that the only two times an impeachment actually became necessary, the charges were bullshit. IF it can be shown that he was intentionally lying and intentionally misusing the CIA, President Bush appears to have gone far beyond that traditional requirement. And he’s protected by his precious Republican-controlled Congress.
But next November, things might change, and if they go the right way–or should I say, left way–that feller could wind up behind bars.
I don’t get it. This is yet another right-wing spin that makes no sense at all, because, as has already been mentioned, the whole primary case made against Iraq, was bogus from the start.
Let’s see, off the top of my head, I remember the following:
*The non-existant “IAEA report” on Iraq nuclear capabilities.
*The “drones of doom”
*The “aluminum tubes”
*The “mobile chemical labs”
*The faux tie-in with Al Quada operatives in northern Iraq.
*The “tons of anthax and other deadly gases”
*The student dossier-as-evidence at the UN
*The OBL tape t"transcript" that never was
*The “ammo storage” bunkers seen from satellite imagery
…and, of course, the whole “yellowcake fiasco.”
All Bushit. And all you are left with is “Saddam the Boogey Man.”
How many of you would have supported this naked power-grab based on that? Because that’s all you’re left with.
PS-I realize that you say “you never bought the WMD” bit, but since you apparently supported the invasion, I’d be curious to know what possible legal[/u[ reason you can come up with.
There is sometimes considerable comfort in living this close to the Canadian border.
But seriously folks…
Without taxing my limited skills as a Constitutional scholar, I’d have to think that if this behavior isn’t grounds for impeachment, it points out a grave flaw in the Constitution. Leaving aside any possibility of actual mendacity, the fact remains of playing fast and loose with the facts due to an overwhelming need to support a policy by any means necessary. That oughta do it.
But I wouldn’t support such a move, as galling as that may be. With relations between the parties and thier respective supporters being as strained as they are, and will be, I think it would be too destructive. What is more needed is a good solid check from a revitalized Loyal Opposition, keep these clowns on the up and up, until such time as the problem can be more directly remedied.
And, of course, we must make it clearly understood that any attempt to distract us with another military adventure will not fly.
Okay, we must realize that one has to get ones priorities straight. Killing people is GOOD! Tube Steak Snackery is EEEEEEEEVIL!
This is the tack I wish Bush had taken towards invading Iraq:
It was a mistake not to take out Saddam Hussein in the Gulf War in 1990. It was a mistake to think that we could just contain him with our No Fly Zone, etc., forever. We have inspectors running around Iraq playing an impossible game of cat and mouse with purhaps the most brutal dictator in the world today. We have no idea what weapons he has, although we have his proven track record of trying to obtain WMDs to bully his neighbors. So, we are going to take out this dictator, who is a plague on his people and on humanity as a whole. We are going to make up for the mistake we made a decade ago. And I say to Saddam, you have “x” amount of time to surrender or go into exile. We would like to avoid war, but we are now deteremined that you will no longer brutalize your own people and threaten the stability of the Middle East and, as a consequence, the stability of the rest of the world.
Very Truely yours,
G. W. Bush"
Who died and made us God?
“Good Heavens, Homes, what have you found?”
“It appears to be a .44 caliber Webley pistol, Watson, recently discharged, I would say, judging from the smoke…”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A8777-2003Jul17?language=printer
"The State Department received copies of what would turn out to be forged documents suggesting that Iraq tried to purchase uranium oxide from Niger three months before the president’s State of the Union address, administration officials said.
The documents, which officials said appeared to be of “dubious authenticity,” were distributed to the CIA and other agencies within days. But the U.S. government waited four months to turn them over to United Nations weapons inspectors who had been demanding to see evidence of U.S. and British claims that Iraq’s attempted purchase of uranium oxide violated U.N. resolutions and was among the reasons to go to war. State Department officials could not say yesterday why they did not turn over the documents when the inspectors asked for them in December.
The administration, facing increased criticism over the claims it made about Iraq’s attempts to buy uranium, had said until now that it did not have the documents before the State of the Union speech."