The reason for impeachment

This is from an article entitled "If Beale Street Could Talk – Part 2" by David Swanson:

If we go into the next presidency with the next president free to launch wars on the basis of lies, torture, murder, detain without charge, spy without warrant, rewrite laws with signing statements, hide the workings of our government, disobey laws on his or her whim . . . I don't care what party he or she is from, I don't care if it's Nelson Mandela, you don't give that power to a human being. And that's what we're doing if we fail to impeach Bush and Cheney.

I think that is a terribly important point. Why doesn't Nancy Pelosi get it?

Joan Chittister on Iraq

Joan Chittister

This is from an article entitled "Try to Remember: The Dilemma is a Human One":

While the gears of the political world grind exceeding slow, the military mistakes multiply. More babies die, more civilians flee, more homes are destroyed, the economy crumbles, the innocent stand caught between forces not of their own making. And the world stands back and watches in judgment as one United States becomes another in their minds.

-- Joan Chittister

Bush in the White House LIbrary

Interesting, isn't it, how the Bush speech last Wednesday was televised not from the Oval Office but from the White House library. How's this for great snark?

People who watched the speech said President Bush looked uncomfortable. And I was thinking, of course -- he was in a library surrounded by books.

--David Letterman

The weakness of violence

From Strength to Love (1963):

The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it. Through violence you may murder the liar, but you cannot murder the lie, nor establish the truth. Through violence you may murder the hater, but you do not murder hate. In fact, violence merely increases hate. So it goes. Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that. Hate multiplies hate, violence multiplies violence, and toughness multiplies toughness in a descending spiral of destruction.... The chain reaction of evil — hate begetting hate, wars producing more wars — must be broken, or we shall be plunged into the dark abyss of annihilation.

-- Martin Luther King, Jr.

Read your Bible, Mr. President

I blogged this back in April but it seems to me it bears repeating:

These six things the Lord hates, yes, seven are an abomination to Him: A proud look, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked plans, feet that are swift in running to evil, a false witness who speaks lies, and one who sows discord among brethren.

-- Proverbs 6:16-19

The influence of TV and video

Here's a gruesome example of fallout from the Saddam hanging. The article is entitled "Several Boys Die Copying Saddam Hanging" and it's about young people not truly realizing the consequences of copying violence:

The boys' deaths — scattered in the United States, in Yemen, in Turkey and elsewhere in seemingly isolated horror — had one thing in common: They hanged themselves after watching televised images of Saddam Hussein's execution.

Officials and relatives say the children appeared to be mimicking the former dictator's Dec. 30 hanging, shown both on a sanitized Iraqi government tape and explicit clandestine videos that popped up on Web sites and some TV channels.
...
A day after Saddam's execution, a 10-year-old boy in Texas hanged himself from a bunk bed after watching a news report on the execution. Police in the Houston suburb of Webster said the boy, Sergio Pelico, tied a slipknot around his neck while on the bed but had not mean to kill himself.

"I don't think he thought it was real," Julio Gustavo, Sergio's uncle, said afterward. "They showed them putting the noose around his neck and everything. Why show that on TV?"

Why indeed?

Other examples of boys from several different countries were reported on as well. This is really tragic.

Let EVERYBODY sacrifice

Look, I'm not too fond of Thomas Friedman but he said something the other day that I wish the president would hear:

Mr. President, you want a surge? I’ll surge. I’ll surge on the condition that you once and for all enlist the entire American people in this war effort, and stop putting it all on the shoulders of 130,000 military families, and now 20,000 more. I’ll surge on the condition that you make them fight all of us — and that means a real energy policy, with a real gasoline tax, that ends our addiction to oil, shrinks the flow of petro-dollars to bad actors and makes America the world’s leader in conservation.

But please, Mr. President, stop insulting our intelligence by telling us that this is the “decisive ideological struggle of our time,” but we’re going to put the whole burden of victory on 150,000 U.S. soldiers.

If the American people as a whole were required to make sacrifices, then this war would come to an end pretty quickly. And that's why Bush doesn't do it. He knows that, when it comes to this war, the hearts of Americans are really not in it. But we're so apathetic as a people that, as long as it doesn't affect us personally, we just let it keep on going.

Put a substantial war tax on gasoline and watch Americans take to the streets.

The definition of security

A paragraph really got my attention from an article entitled "Breaking! Our Armed Forces" by Evan Frisch. Take a look:

As George Lakoff and the Rockridge Institute explored in our recent book Thinking Points (Chapter 6), conservatives regard security as the use of force, while progressives view security as protection. To make sure that our ports, our infrastructure, and our troops are protected is part of the progressive understanding of security as protection. Bush's policies take the conservative conception of security to its absurd conclusion. It emphasizes the use of force to challenge threats and potential threats to the exclusion of other tools, such as diplomacy. Secretary of State Rice or other officials are dispatched to shore up support for military action, not to broker political compromises that would make military action unecessary. Even providing adequate body armor, part of the progressive concept of protection is security, is not a priority to this administration.

That explains a lot, doesn't it? The use of force actually makes me feel insecure. But not the conservatives, apparently. How to solve this problem is beyond me.

Don't be a weenie, Mr. President

Charlotte Alexandre sent me the following by Michael Moore and you can find the original on his website:

1/10/07

Dear Mr. President,

Thanks for your address to the nation. It's good to know you still want to talk to us after how we behaved in November.

Listen, can I be frank? Sending in 20,000 more troops just ain't gonna do the job. That will only bring the troop level back up to what it was last year. And we were losing the war last year! We've already had over a million troops serve some time in Iraq since 2003. Another few thousand is simply not enough to find those weapons of mass destruction! Er, I mean... bringing those responsible for 9/11 to justice! Um, scratch that. Try this -- BRING DEMOCRACY TO THE MIDDLE EAST! YES!!!

You've got to show some courage, dude! You've got to win this one! C'mon, you got Saddam! You hung 'im high! I loved watching the video of that --just like the old wild west! The bad guy wore black! The hangmen were as crazy as the hangee! Lynch mobs rule!!!

Look, I have to admit I feel very sorry for the predicament you're in. As Ricky Bobby said, "If you're not first, you're last." And you being humiliated in front of the whole world does NONE of us Americans any good.

Sir, listen to me. You have to send in MILLIONS of troops to Iraq, not thousands! The only way to lick this thing now is to flood Iraq with millions of us! I know that you're out of combat-ready soldiers -- so you have to look elsewhere! The only way you are going to beat a nation of 27 million -- Iraq -- is to send in at least 28 million! Here's how it would work:

The first 27 million Americans go in and kill one Iraqi each. That will quickly take care of any insurgency. The other one million of us will stay and rebuild the country. Simple.

Now, I know you're saying, where will I find 28 million Americans to go to Iraq? Here are some suggestions:

1. More than 62,000,000 Americans voted for you in the last election (the one that took place a year and half into a war we already knew we were losing). I am confident that at least a third of them would want to put their body where their vote was and sign up to volunteer. I know many of these people and, while we may disagree politically, I know that they don't believe someone else should have to go and fight their fight for them -- while they hide here in America.

2. Start a "Kill an Iraqi" Meet-Up group in cities across the country. I know this idea is so early-21st century, but I once went to a Lou Dobbs Meet-Up and, I swear, some of the best ideas happen after the third mojito. I'm sure you'll get another five million or so enlistees from this effort.

3. Send over all members of the mainstream media. After all, they were your collaborators in bringing us this war -- and many of them are already trained from having been "embedded!" If that doesn't bring the total to 28 million, then draft all viewers of the FOX News channel.

Mr. Bush, do not give up! Now is not the time to pull your punch! Don't be a weenie by sending in a few over-tired troops. Get your people behind you and YOU lead them in like a true commander in chief! Leave no conservative behind! Full speed ahead!

We promise to write. Go get 'em W!

Yours,
Michael Moore

Excellent. Just excellent!

Nibbling away

Edmund Burke

This has been happening for the last six years:

The true danger is when liberty is nibbled away, for expedience, and by parts.

- Edmund Burke

Friday cat blogging!

Henry

Photo by Ellie Finlay

Quote of the week

Now you must admit, this is bold:

I have to say, Madame Secretary, that I think this speech given last night by this president represents the most dangerous foreign policy blunder in this country since Vietnam, if it's carried out. I will resist it.

-- Sen. Chuck Hagel (R), Nebraska

The President's tears

The article is entitled "Tearful Bush presents Medal of Honor to family of fallen Marine from WNY" and here's the excerpt:

WASHINGTON - A tearful President Bush on Thursday presented the nation's highest military honor to the late Marine Cpl. Jason Dunham of Allegany County, who died in Iraq in 2004 after diving on a grenade to save the lives of two of his comrades.

A little more than 12 hours after announcing plans to send another 21,500 troops to Iraq, the somber-faced president went to the podium in the East Room of the White House which was jam-packed with Washington luminaries and Marines in full dress uniforms to give the Medal of Honor to Dunham's family.

"With this medal we pay tribute to the courage and leadership of a man who represents the best of young Americans," Bush said. "With this medal we ask the God who commands us to love our neighbor as ourselves to wrap his arms around the family of Cpl. Jason Dunham, a Marine who is not here today because he lived that commandment to the fullest."

Bush then presented the Medal of Honor only the second to go to a service member who fought in the Iraq War to Dunham's parents, Dan and Deb Dunham of Scio, and other family members.

It was a moving ceremony for all of those involved, most notably the president.

"I have never been in his presence where I've seen him actually cry," said Rep. Randy Kuhl, R-Hammondsport. "And there were tears running down his face."

First of all, our neighbors, biblically speaking, are not only our comrades in arms but also the Iraqis whose country we have wreaked such destruction upon.

Secondly, what were those tears about? Were they for show? Were they tears of guilt? (Unlikely.) We can't, of course, know for sure because no one can judge another person's heart. Let's just say that, because of Bush's history and his demonstrated lack of concern and empathy for others in the past, his recent tears are not exactly convincing.

New Rule

Jenna and Barbara Bush

Lisa over at All Hat No Cattle says the following:

NEW RULE: The first troops sent over to Iraq will be the Bush twins followed anyone else of military age in the Bush family. Then Bush will bring the troops home.

Right. Snowball's chance in hell, too.

Restrictions?

Well, did you watch the President's speech last night? I didn't watch it, exactly. But I followed it via "live blogging" on AMERICAblog (which also published a complete transcript of the address). There's a lot in it that disturbed me but what I want to call your attention to right now is Bush's statement that not only were there not enough troops in Iraq, but that "there were too many restrictions on the troops that we did have." What kind of restrictions is he talking about? Restrictions against more brutality?

Here's a comment written in response to an article called "Bush is right, it's time for America to change course" by someone whose screen name is "kanuckistani":

"He said that not only were there not enough troops in Iraq, but that "there were too many restrictions on the troops that we did have."

So, Abu Ghraib was just a garden party?"

This is the statement of Bush's that needs to be broadcast. "..too many restictions..." is just like after Vietnam, the cry of "If we were only more brutal, we would have won." As if killing 4 million Southeast Asians somehow wasn't an atrocity. Now it's "We need to go house to house in Baghdad and kill every adult male (and a fair number of women and children) until the people stop fighting back."

What do Americans really think is motivating the average Iraqi, that "fewer restrictions" will change? And is Bush now going to unilaterally change the rules of what is and isn't allowed? Just what specific ruthlessness does he have in mind? Any illusions as to if the Geneva conventions apply?

I hope the Dems (and the average U.S. citizens) can stop this.

Peace

We are hated now around the world. If Bush decides to have "fewer restrictions" on the military on how they conduct themselves we will soon be more than hated. We will be utterly despised. We will be loathed. We will be seen as the embodiment of evil. And those who see us that way will be right.

Iraq plan

Here's a CNN QuickVote:

What is your overall reaction to President Bush's revised Iraq plan?

Positive - 25%

Negative - 75%

Another picture of the"surge"

This article is called, "Intervention needed, stat: Nobody intelligent thinks the 'surge' will do anything except get more people killed" and here's how it gets started:

Imagine a mentally ill person who persists in jamming a fork into an electrical outlet, badly burning himself. "Next time it will feel good!" he keeps saying. Finally, after getting out of the ol' bughouse (and out of restraints) he calls a press conference to say he has changed.

"Tomorrow I will jam a fork into the top outlet with my left hand and a fork into the bottom with my right hand," he says. "I am confident that will bring us success, and that my enemies have misunderestimated me."

That's George "Captain Ahab" Bush, who the press persists in treating as a sane and rational person worthy of respect. He is not.
...
Nobody intelligent thinks the "surge" will do anything except get more Americans and even more Iraqis killed. There are some military men who think if you threw in a few hundred thousand more, we could hold Iraq in some kind of a sullen, Roman- or British Empire-style long-term occupation.

Except we don't have the money, men or will to do that.

It's really going to be interesting to see how this all plays out. Probably it will play out badly. It's a pity we all have to stand by and watch more or less helplessly. Of course we can all send emails of protest and I hope everybody has.