September 28, 2007


IMPEACH BUSH


IMPEACH CHENEY

THE BUSH ENABLERS

It's ironic, really, that some of the people who yell the most about freedom and piously wrap themselves in the flag are the first in line when it comes to the destruction of civil liberties. I remember a letter to the editor in The Fresno Bee where the writer suggested that the Constitution was outdated for our times. Those nasty amendments in the Bill of Rights keep George W. Bush from "protecting" us from terrorists. Even if you gave Bush all the power in the world, which he seems to crave, he would never protect us from everything. In the meantime we would have no freedom. Is that what life is supposed to be, living like a herd animal in a cage, "protected" until our number comes up? This article by Walter Uhler is at www.walter-c-uhler.com:

Certain Americans chose a president no smarter than themselves, an illiterate who, in the seventh year of his presidency, still mangles the English language with such sentences as "Childrens do learn." Far worse, however, certain Americans chose a president who then lied to them about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction and ties to al Qaeda, in order to send their sons and daughters (along with our sons and daughters) to kill Iraqis and, perhaps, die in an illegal, immoral invasion - now considered the worst strategic disaster in US history.

Even so, certain Americans either shrugged their shoulders or rationalized away the evil behavior of their president when, for example, on the eve of announcing the invasion of Iraq, he "pumped his fist as though instead of initiating a war he had kicked a winning field goal or hit a home run. 'Feels good,' he said." [Paul Waldman, Fraud, p. 8]

Certain Americans cheered him when he proclaimed "Mission Accomplished," more than four years and thousands of lives ago. Certain Americans basked in his phony bravado, when, from the safety of his White House, their coward-in-chief said "Bring 'em on" to the Iraqis just beginning to develop their deadly insurgency. And certain Americans raised few questions when, in 2007, their president falsely told Australia's deputy prime minister that "We're kicking ass" in Iraq.

THE STORY OF NINE BILLION MISSING DOLLARS

This is the story of shipments of large "bricks" of cash to Iraq, some $12 billion, of which $9 billion went missing. When it comes to the Bush administration there is no accountability for anything. Enron-style accounting is used in Iraq and in disguising the budget deficit here at home. Imagine how much good $12 billion could do to build housing, provide health care, clean up the environment, or improve education. The level of corruption in this administration is simply astonishing. This article by Donald L. Barlett and James B. Steele is at www.corpwatch.org:

There is no true method of calculating the human cost of the war in Iraq. The monetary cost, grossly inflated by theft and corruption, is another matter. One simple piece of data puts this into perspective: to date, America has spent twice as much in inflation-adjusted dollars to rebuild Iraq as it did to rebuild Japan--an industrialized country three times Iraq's size, two of whose cities had been incinerated by atomic bombs. Understanding how and why this happened will take many years--if understanding comes at all. There has been no rush to explain even this one small part of the story, that of the missing Iraqi billions. No one in the U.S. government wants to talk about NorthStar Consultants, much less about the money that disappeared. Bradford R. Higgins was the C.P.A.'s chief financial officer, on loan from the State Department, where he is assistant secretary for resource management and chief financial officer. Higgins says it was "a Department of Defense-managed operation"; he says that "I don't know anyone at NorthStar" and that he did not oversee its operations. The C.P.A.'s comptroller and D.F.I. fund manager during the NorthStar days in 2003 was air-force colonel Don Davis. Through the air-force public-affairs office in the Pentagon, Davis declined to comment. L. Paul Bremer III, who wrote a 400-page book on his experiences as the C.P.A.'s administrator, stated in an interview that he had no input in the decision to hire NorthStar. He explained that "all of the contracting was done, by order of the secretary of defense, by the department of the army. They were our contracting arm ... I don't think I ever heard of NorthStar until some questions came up after I left." Nor did he have any dealings with NorthStar's Howell, he said. "If I met him, I have no memory of it." Queries sent repeatedly to the army's public-affairs desk in Baghdad and the Pentagon have gone unanswered, as have those to the office of the secretary of defense.