January 24, 2008




IMPEACH BUSH



IMPEACH CHENEY



BUSH ADMINISTRATION: OVER 900 LIES TO WAR



It's no real surprise to most of us. We have known for some time that the Bush administration constructed a mountain of lies to justify a war with Iraq. But for the sake of history it's important that a new study has documented over 900 lies told by the administration. Bush himself has been documented with over 200 lies. This is no small matter when you consider the carnage rained on Iraq, the deaths and wounding of our own military, the raid on our treasury, and the destruction of our credibility. This article by Frank J. Ranelli is at www.smirkingchimp.com:


A nonprofit collaboration of two independent, non-governmental organizations has concluded that President Bush used at least 532 misleading and deceptively false statements to justify military action against Iraq. In all, the Bush administration as a whole used a mind-numbing 935 false statements to goad America into war with Iraq. Calling their findings “an orchestrated deception on the path to war,” the partnership report may very well be the first fully comprehensive investigation that incontrovertibly proves the Bush administration lied this nation into an unfounded war.


The Center for Public Integrity and the Fund for Independence in Journalism determined, through a collective study and breakdown of Bush administration speeches, press briefings and interviews, that Bush and other top officials “led the nation to war on the basis of erroneous information.”


According to the report, Bush alone lied more than 259 times, including 232 false statements “about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq” and “28 about Iraq's links to al-Qaida.” Quoting Charles Lewis and Mark Reading-Smith of the Fund for Independence in Journalism, “It is now beyond dispute that Iraq did not possess any weapons of mass destruction or have meaningful ties to al-Qaida.” Furthermore, the shared study noted, “the statements were part of an orchestrated campaign that effectively galvanized public opinion and, in the process, led the nation to war under decidedly false pretenses.”


ABOUT A YEAR TO GO


The countdown is on in this country and around the world for George W. Bush and Dick Cheney to go. I only hope the country isn't suckered into electing another Republican like John McCain or Mitt Romney. The damage the current administration has done will take decades to repair. Some of it can never be undone. Let's hope that we've learned some things. For starters, the man who wins the most votes should win the election. Abolish the Electoral College. Second, we need campaign finance reform. Big donors and corporations shouldn't get to be kingmakers. Third, we need major reform in the media. The media acted as cheerleaders for this atrocity in Iraq. There are countless other reforms we need, but those would be a good start. This column by Patt Morrison is at www.latimes.com:



One year from this very moment, someone other than George Bush will be sliding behind that antique desk in the Oval Office. In embassies and outposts that fly the Stars and Stripes, photographs of a face other than Bush's will be going up on the walls.


At long, long last. It is seven years since Bush plopped down behind that desk, seven years when hope and honor and good faith and goodwill died a little for me, for many other heartsick Americans who love this country, and for millions around the world who looked up to this country.


I say "died," and I mean that. The psychiatrist Elisabeth Kubler-Ross laid out the basic stages of grief and coming to terms with loss. And Kubler-Ross' five stages track almost perfectly the arc of how we've grappled and grieved over the sickening power crusade of the Bush administration against the nation for these last seven years.