In a memo sent to Congress five years ago today, Bush decreed that he was attacking Iraq “to take the necessary actions against international terrorists and terrorist organizations, including those nations, organizations, or persons who planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001.”
The Bush administration linked Saddam to 9/11 to justify commencing a war that has left hundreds of thousands of people dead.
Launching an unprovked aggressive war was recognized as a war crime at the Nuremberg tribunals in 1946, which declared that to “initiate a war of aggression… is not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole.”
The Bush administration has had five years to offer up evidence to support the Saddam/9/11 tie. They have offered nothing.
It is an outrage that Bush has faced no legal or constitutional peril for his lethal fraud.
*****
UPDATE: I also posted this on the Antiwar.com blog. Someone picked up that entry and posted it on DemocraticUnderground.com here.
Jim,
It seems like there are very few, beside Kucinich, who have openly campaigned for legal prosecution of Bush and Co. There is very little talk amongst the paleo-conservatives, libertarians, or “liberals” – outside Counterpunch and few other sites – calling for prosecution. Most good, rational people, when asked about this, sort of get this uncomfortable glaze in their eyes, and quickly redirect the conversation toward “the-political-process-will-bring-about-change” subject.
It doesn’t matter if one points out that that impeachment is a political process…
I guess the consensus is that the President can now go to war or bomb anyone (Somalia) he wants with impunity. There are literally no checks on the power of that branch of government anymore, and everyone implicitly knows it.
All that said, do you think Monica is available for another shift in the White House? Maybe we could rustle up a few more dollars than Spitzer’s little honey was charging. (But having seen pictures of both, maybe Ms. Dupre was getting fair market value!)
That’d be about the only way I know that impeachment hearings would go forward.
Contrasting Monica and Ms. Dupre, my first reaction was that at least Dupre was not the type to keep talking the whole way through.
On the other hand, perhaps politicians prefer women to keep up the equivalent of baseball infield chatter – “Keep Going! You are the Greatest! Your most recent legislative proposal was your best ever!”
On the Somalia stuff – it is amazing tht there seems to be zero outrage about that. Regardless of how many innocent cows are killed by American bombs, it is a non-issue.
The lack of enthusiasm for impeachment is a sign of the naivete of the opposition to Bush. Unless he sees the legal equivalent of a [redacted] dangling in front of him, he will keep on with his foreign and domestic crimes and aggression.
I thought more about your impeachment query this morning when I read Senator McCain was in Jordon today – along with his big buddy Leiberman – pontificating about the Iranians arming and training al-Qada. Apparently, he kept repeating the charge until Uncle Joe whispered in ear…
My point, Jim, is that even a hawk, a high priest of the military-industrial complex, doesn’t even know the participants in this five-year war, much less whether the President is culpable.
Indeed, I suspect most of our Congressmen don’t know or much care what the facts on the ground in Iraq or Afghanistan are – I know mine doesn’t – most of their bravado and bellicosity are for public consumption.
By the way, how can I get a taxpayer-funded “fact finding” trip to the Middle East, or much better yet, perennial hotspots like, New Zealand or Switzerland.
As long as congressmen collect campaign contributions for supporting killing more Muslims, it doesn’t matter whether it is Shiite, Sunni, Al Qaeda, Arab or Persian- those big bucks keep rolling into their coffers.
I checked with my sources and have not been able to find a govt.-paid fact-finding mission to Zurich for either one of us.
…Bush as “Unitary Executor” has acted with utter impunity for close to 8 years now; and unless I’m very much mistaken the succeeding Administration will be no different. The same puppeteers of The Israel Lobby will be pulling their strings, taking our dollars, and worse the lives of our young people in this endless, Goddamned, War of Occupation…That even now threatens to expand into Iran. A truly, fucked up State of Affairs.
Yes, but with a new administration, the media will spend the first year or two assuring us that the new rulers & aides are “The Best & the Brightest.”
Until the roof falls in again.
…True enough Jimmy. The question then is: Just how many roofs is it gonna take?
Falsely linking Saddam to 9/11 was a key component of the big lie required to initiate America’s war of aggression against Iraq. Prior to the invasion I had taken the time to read a biography of Saddam, something that no one in the Bush administration and few average Americans had apparently bothered to do. Saddam and other members of the Baath party were secular socialists. Iraq was actually one of the few Arab countries not controlled by a Muslim theocratic government. It didn’t make sense that Saddam would suddenly involve himself with radical religious elements planning an attack on the World Trade Center. Not only had he distanced himself from such people/groups in the past, he was also intelligent enough to know that any connection to a terrorism incident staged in the U.S. would spell his doom.
…It’s safe to say that had Mossad even suspected that Saddam Hussein had anything in the way of WMD; then Likud Boss Ariel Sharon would have ordered a pre-emptive air strike al la the 7 Jun 1981 attack on the Osirak reactor near Baghdad. Truth is, The US Public was being lied to, and still is—Blatantly so.
I agree.
Historically speaking, I think if Nixon were around today, he could have walked away from Watergate with ease.
Oh, and let me add he had plenty of help from Congress, inlcuding chicken shit cowards in the Democratic Party.
Steve – excellent point.
My condemnation of Bush should never be read as an endorsement of the mainstream Democratic Party. Bush could never have done so much damage to the world or the US Constitution had most Democrats on Capitol Hill been four-star feckless.
By all accounts, this pooching of the lapsed-Republic is simply the crowning achievement of a public that obviously has taken adulatory self-loathing to new heights. Listening to James Dimon of JP Morgan say ” I don’t think Bear did anything to deserve this”…….and….”No one on Wall Street could have anticipated this”…well, it reassures me that this aint some dark conspiracy to wreck the good old USA, it’s just a clusterboink brought to you by a collection of narcissistic morons that tuned out and turned on in the 60’s and aint quite managed to tune back in since. Bush aint alone in this at all, he’s got enough un-indicted co-conspirators to cover the Polar Ice Caps and they are just now rubbing up against a Titanic called the American Citizen. They say a fool and his money are easily parted but nobody ever explained what a fool who applauds and waves flags while being parted from his money is.
Jim, in my local rag of a newspaper today, the headline was “Bush scolds skeptics over the War”.
Jim, I’m not the brighest bulb in the room, but to this day, I will never understand how this man has any shred of creditability anymore.
But then again, the feckless media(minus people like Dahr Jamail and the people at antiwar.com) have proven to me that they are nothing but de-facto government agents.