Impeachment As an Act of Patriotism (CommonDreams)

[marmar]

Published on Monday, March 19, 2007 by CommonDreams.org
Impeachment As an Act of Patriotism
by Richard W. Behan

When people who are honestly mistaken learn the truth, they will either cease being mistaken, or cease being honest.
-- Anonymous

We the American people would not do what George Bush and Richard Cheney have done in Iraq, all of it in our name. We would not, for utterly fabricated reasons, invade and occupy a sovereign country without provocation, killing hundreds of thousands of its citizens, driving millions more from their homes as refugees, torturing prisoners, destroying the country’s economy and infrastructure, fomenting a vicious sectarian civil war, sacrificing 3,200 American lives, squandering half a trillion dollars, dangerously destabilizing the Middle East, blackening our country’s character, and defaming every American citizen.

We are not a devious, savage, and warlike people. With considerable merit we think of Americans as honest, decent, and law-abiding, generous, tolerant, and humane. And we are patriotic, devoted to our country and to its ideals of freedom, democracy, peace, justice, and honesty in government.

The huge disconnect between who we are and what our government is doing in Iraq is painfully apparent, and the gap is insuperable.

It is imperative, therefore, that we hold the President and Vice President accountable not only for breaking domestic and international laws, but for violating the ethical and institutional essence of America and the ideals of her people. To rescue our country’s elemental decency and to assure the security of its governing principles, it is our patriotic duty to impeach George Bush and Richard Cheney.

We consented to the invasion of Iraq because history told us we could trust our government to tell the truth. We were not naïve: the Vietnam war was also launched on a fabrication, but that was an aberration. We would not and did not expect it to be repeated. So we trusted and believed George Bush, Richard Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Condoleezza Rice, and Colin Powell when they spoke to us. They said Saddam Hussein was complicit in the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. They said he had terrifying weapons of mass destruction and the means of delivering them to our shores. They said he could soon trigger a nuclear device in our country, killing hundreds of thousands of American people. .....(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.commondreams.org/views07/0319-24.htm

[Demeter]

1. Right On!

Bush is the ultimate Personality Test (as in whether you have one worth using).

[MasonJar]

2. Impeach them for sure, but a lot of us knew the lies were lies.