July 06, 2007


IMPEACH BUSH


IMPEACH CHENEY

BUSH: THE LIBERTIES DESTROYER

George W. Bush likes to represent himself as the Big Daddy protecting us all from evil terrorists. In fact, Bush has used terrorism as an excuse to destroy the fabric of civil liberties that has made the United States the great country it is. We aren't great because of an economy or because of a military; we're great because liberty counts for something. It counted, that is, until Bush and his cohorts started finding ways to subvert our rights. This editorial is from The Baltimore Sun at www.baltimoresun.com:

On this 231st anniversary of Jefferson's eloquent Declaration of Independence from British rule, the United States is desperately in need of restoring the rights and freedoms surrendered in a false bid for security that has perversely put the nation at greater risk.

Consider what has been lost.

Sweeping federal measures, most of them heavily cloaked in secrecy, have robbed Americans of privacy, due process of law, even freedom of movement. Warrantless wiretaps, e-mail surveillance, national security letters secretly demanding information on thousands of citizens and, soon to come, the equivalent of national ID cards - all would be abominations to Jefferson.

THE LIBBY COVERUP

The truth is not only alien to George W. Bush; it's something to be smeared. The classic case is Ambassador Joseph Wilson and his wife Valerie Plame. Wilson took a trip to Niger to verify whether or not Iraq was buying yellowcake uranium. He found out that Iraq wasn't buying uranium. That finding didn't suit Bush, who needed some excuse to attack Iraq. So, as an act of political revenge, Bush and company outed the name of Wilson's wife, who was a covert CIA operative. Doing so put her life in danger, probably got her contacts tortured or killed, and compromised sensitive intelligence. Scooter Libby was instrumental in outing the name of Ms. Wilson. He has acted as a fall guy for the administration and Bush rewarded him by commuting his well-deserved prison sentence. Robert Parry talks about this tawdry case at www.consortiumnews.com:

So, the evidence is that not only was there a high-level administration conspiracy to leak Plame’s identity but there was an equally high-level conspiracy to cover up the truth.

Libby got nailed because he failed to shift away from the cover stories when the investigation grew serious following the appointment of U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald as a special prosecutor in December 2003.

But the cover-up never ended. Republican senators and the Republican National Committee issued harsh attacks on Wilson, making him out to be a liar when the reality was that his fact-finding trip had helped the U.S. intelligence community correctly raise pre-war doubts about Iraq’s supposed pursuit of uranium for nuclear weapons.

As Libby faced trial in early 2007, other right-wingers, such as attorney Victoria Toensing, released other red herrings to confuse the public. Toensing, for instance, began insisting that Plame was not a “covert” officer because she was “stationed” at CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia.