HIGH CRIMES AND MISDEMEANORS
There have been lies to CONGRESS, lies to the AMERICAN PEOPLE, and lies to the WORLD; there have been massive widespread instances of torture and coverups at the highest level of our government; there have been numerous violations of the Constitution, The International Declaration of Human Rights, the Geneva Convention, and the Ten Commandments. We have witnessed obstruction of justice, crony capitalism, arbitrary and unfair applications of the laws of our country; we have endured massive propaganda campaigns, the diversion and misuse of public resources.
We have been subjected to censorship, reckless foreign policy, corrupt fiscal schemes, dangerous environmental actions and inactions. The social and economic agenda of this administration has been cruel and ruthless.
Incompetence is the kindest word to use for the complete breakdown of every single defense this country experienced on the day our financial and military center was targeted for destruction. That "catastrophic and catalyzing event" was somehow "piggybacked" with the anthrax attacks to justify not one, but two pre-planned wars.
Justice Must Be Seen To Be Done
(emphasis mine)
We have been subjected to censorship, reckless foreign policy, corrupt fiscal schemes, dangerous environmental actions and inactions. The social and economic agenda of this administration has been cruel and ruthless.
Incompetence is the kindest word to use for the complete breakdown of every single defense this country experienced on the day our financial and military center was targeted for destruction. That "catastrophic and catalyzing event" was somehow "piggybacked" with the anthrax attacks to justify not one, but two pre-planned wars.
Justice Must Be Seen To Be Done
...we have, installed in our oval office, a man who is so unfit for the duties - by reason of a pathological dishonesty and complete disregard for the welfare of the citizens of this country - as to demand that we remove him, and his party, from power - and then use every law and organ of government to investigate the nakedly criminal underpinnings of that party. And exact precisely the punishments that they have so gleefully inflicted upon others.snip
There is no other alternative - any individual who can, backed by media and political system - state that Iraq is part of the war on Terror - is beyond hope. Any journalist, politician, general, writer, political operative or other so called public intellectual who can cling to such a statement is, equally, beneath contempt.
The United States, in the wake of 30 years of devastating conflict, laid the foundation for international institutions that endured until this conflict took place. While imperfect, often abused, and frequently engaged in their own follies, there was a progressive adherence to the idea of international law, and global leadership. This has been broken. Merely removing Bush will not restore it, because legitimacy rests not on there not being a criminal in power, but it being impossible for a criminal to come to power.snip
Every organ of our society - journalistic, political, academic and social - has failed utterly to prevent a criminal enterprise from commandeering the powers of the Presidency, and the Congress. Every individual of any position or honour in our society must count themselves as guilty of this failure, for it would have been better to die exercising Jefferson's ultimate right, then to live under the shame of knowing that, even should they be removed, it will be merely a temporary respite from corruption, which will, in 2, 4 or 8 years time, seize power again, and again tear on a profligate attack of borrow and squander.
There are, at this moment, thousands of American young people dead or maimed from this war. There are dozens of journalists, politicians, businessmen, who have made fat profits from their death and dismemberment. Who racked statues on their shelves from the acclaim for acting as propagandists and dupes - simply because the public and elites wished to be duped. Almost all continue to be well paid, and in positions of authority and prestige. It is this, beyond all else, that indicates that America has become criminal to its very core. We do not indict those who have shoveled the flower of our youth into the furnace of Iraq - we do all but knight them.snip
Our only redemption would be to strike with the overwhelming force of law and social might to set these individuals to justice. But the political reality is that this will not happen, and cannot happen, and therefore shall not happen.
Because of this, should we decide, out of temporary lack of fortitude, not to act - we must therefore resign ourselves to a generation of warfare, as those who sit now under the boot of our military, filled with jealous rage and the kind of monomaniacal devotion to death that only a people who have nothing to lose and every thing to gain can have - plot and then eventually execute acts of atomic terrorism against our cities. It seems, obviously, that this is the only lesson that will be sufficient. Our response will, of course, be to strike back with overwhelming force, with such dire consequences as atomic warfare brings.
Those are our only two choices: either we must uphold the laws that we are selves have written, and exact the maximum punishments on those who have so nakedly broken them - or we must expect that others will write their own laws, judge us by them, and execute under them.
We must have a full accounting, not merely of those who have been in government, but those who have shilled for this extravaganza of carnage, and those who have profited by the trillion from the tax breaks which have flowed like water through the Potomac.
We must have, at long last, real freedom, and real truth.
Or we will, ourselves, have committed a crime.
And "Where there is crime, there is no justice."
(emphasis mine)
