It has been a truly amazing spectacle over the last seven years: watching the accession of the thug Bush and the thug Cheney and all of their little goosestepping buddies to the levers of power in America. Let's see, they had to destroy democracy in America before, during and after the 2000 Presidential Elections, with their criminal acts of removing some 50,000 black voters from the Florida election registration lists because their names resembled those of Texas felons...with the help of the then Secretary of State Katherine Harris and then Governor Jeb Bush.
High treason on nine-eleven by Cheney and Rumsfeld in not quite being able to stop the terror attacks, after the top secret practice drills of NORAD to stop hijacked jets from being used as weapons on 9-9 and 9-10.
It's been downhill ever since with this deluded gang of thugs: lying, spying, warmongering, election rigging (electronically in 2004), torture, war crimes, theft of $9,000,000,000.00 in Iraq.
Cheers.
Posted by james k. sayre at March 1, 2007 09:40 AMWouldn't Bush have gone in anyhow?
President Bush, February 7, 2003
Q Mr. President, given the facts as Secretary Powell laid them out at the U.N. the other day, do you really see any means of disarming Saddam other than, at this point, using military force?
THE PRESIDENT: That's up to Saddam Hussein. I mean, the record is poor, at best. The man has been told to disarm for 12 long years. He's ignored the demands of the free world. And then we passed another resolution, and for 90 days he's -- the best way I can describe it is -- played a game with the inspectors. So the U.N. Security Council has got to make up its mind soon as to whether or not its word means anything.
And, you know, I've never felt we needed a resolution; 1441 speaks very clearly. It talks about serious consequences if he doesn't disarm. However, I said yesterday that it would be helpful to have a resolution so long as it demands compliance with 1441, confirms the spirit of 1441. But Saddam Hussein is -- he's treated the demands of the world as a joke up to now, and it was his choice to make. He's the person who gets to decide war and peace.
Q Do you have any confidence in him at all, given his track record, that he will change his ways?
THE PRESIDENT: This is a guy who was asked to declare his weapons, said he didn't have any. This is a person who we have proven to the world is deceiving everybody -- I mean, he's a master at it. He's a master of deception. As I said yesterday, he'll probably try it again. He'll probably try to lie his way out of compliance or deceive or put out some false statement. You know, if he wanted to disarm, he would have disarmed. We know what a disarmed regime looks like.
I heard somebody say the other day, well, how about a beefed-up inspection regime. Well, the role of inspectors is to sit there and verify whether or not he's disarmed, not to play hide-and-seek in a country the size of California. If Saddam Hussein was interested in peace and interested in complying with the U.N. Security Council resolutions, he would have disarmed. And, yet, for 12 years, plus 90 days, he has tried to avoid disarmament by lying and deceiving.
Q Sir, if the Security Council doesn't go along with you, what happens then?
THE PRESIDENT: I have said that if Saddam Hussein does not disarm, we will lead a coalition to disarm him. And I mean it.
Thank you all.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/02/20030207-3.html
This kind of looking back to the crucial moments when our leaders chose disaster is so important, even if it sort of feels like "blood under the bridge" right now.
It shows that with a toxically partisan executive branch, utterly backed by a corporate press, the constitution CANNOT function.
Today's Repub party and the Constitution cannot coexist. Which will America choose?
Posted by euzoius at March 1, 2007 10:07 AMI had forgotten about the Levin amendment and the votes. At the time, I was glued to the screen and couldn't believe the spineless kowtowing being demonstrated in the Senate at the time.
One of the arguments repeatedly made was that the lockstepping GOP-controlled House was going to vote for only the President's resolution and the Levin amendment was going to be buried so deep in committee that it would burn from the magma at the Earth's core. Therefore, if the Senate wouldn't approve the Presidentially backed blank check and only the blank check, the Senate would be made to blame for restricting the President's ability to freely wage war defend our freedoms through gutless obstructionism. Even Feingold & Harkin caved on this one.
Thanks for that reminder, Steve.
Posted by idiosynchronic at March 1, 2007 10:29 AMWage War should be struck through . . I thought that tag worked on the comments.
Posted by idiosynchronic at March 1, 2007 10:31 AMHRC's position was "she recieved council from people she trusted". She asked a lot of questions and made her decision. She surely had Democrats giving her council on this vote. Blaming the president is the easy way out. She had people she trusted tell her this is the right thing to do. Does she still trust them? Have they been replaced? How can we/you trust her to be our president with that kind of decision making? So easily turned to a 'wrong' decision.
Posted by peter at March 1, 2007 03:51 PMHow can we/you trust her to be our president with that kind of decision making?
What's that "we" thing, Nimrod? You only vote for the national socialist party.
Posted by phidpides at March 1, 2007 05:50 PMYep, just like blaming the CIA was the easy way out. And blaming von Rumsfeld.
And the word is "counsel", for God's sake.
Posted by euzoius at March 1, 2007 07:00 PMAnd the word is "counsel", for God's sake.
Shhhh. He follows Cthulu, euz.
Posted by phidipides at March 1, 2007 10:42 PMAnd I'd like to note what Al Gore was saying when Bush was railroading all those "reasonable" people into giving him a blank check to start an illegal war. (emphasis mine)
By shifting from his early focus after September 11th on war against terrorism to war against Iraq, the President has manifestly disposed of the sympathy, good will and solidarity compiled by America and transformed it into a sense of deep misgiving and even hostility. In just one year, the President has somehow squandered the international outpouring of sympathy, goodwill and solidarity that followed the attacks of September 11th and converted it into anger and apprehension aimed much more at the United States than at the terrorist network - - much as we manage to squander in one year's time the largest budget surpluses in history and convert them into massive fiscal deficits. He has compounded this by asserting a new doctrine - - of preemption.
The doctrine of preemption is based on the idea that in the era of proliferating WMD, and against the background of a sophisticated terrorist threat, the United States cannot wait for proof of a fully established mortal threat, but should rather act at any point to cut that short.
The problem with preemption is that in the first instance it is not needed in order to give the United States the means to act in its own defense against terrorism in general or Iraq in particular. But that is a relatively minor issue compared to the longer-term consequences that can be foreseen for this doctrine. To begin with, the doctrine is presented in open-ended terms, which means that if Iraq if the first point of application, it is not necessarily the last. In fact, the very logic of the concept suggests a string of military engagements against a succession of sovereign states: Syria, Libya, North Korea, Iran, etc., wherever the combination exists of an interest in weapons of mass destruction together with an ongoing role as host to or participant in terrorist operations. It means also that if the Congress approves the Iraq resolution just proposed by the Administration it is simultaneously creating the precedent for preemptive action anywhere, anytime this or any future president so decides.
Personally, my trust in any of the candidates is based on their total repudiation of this immoral doctrine. So far, Obama and Gore are the only ones that have passed that test.
Thanks, Steve, for reminding us about the actual debate and why Wellstone was such a hero to me -- because he was the only Senator up for election that didn't give in to Bush's bullying on this vote.
Did Clinton, Edwards and Biden vote the way they did because they decided their viability as a future Presidential candidate was more important than the implicit validation of a reprehensible doctrine for our country? Or do they really believe that the next President should be able to declare war whenever he or she see fit? I'm waiting to see what these candidates say, because I don't think their votes or their statements about those votes actually help clarify that point.
Posted by Mary at March 2, 2007 12:01 AM