The Decision Is Ours: America, or Not

[understandinglife]

I was reminded today of the effect "A Man for All Seasons" had on me the night I first saw it - shortly after it opened.

The memory was prompted by a Steve C Clemons post at his The Washington Note and I linked a few items in this DU thread entitled by the remarkably relevant and timely quote ""Yes. I give the Devil benefit of law for my own safety's sake.":

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x5439461

I thought about that movie all day and about our crisis - a crisis of lawless, treasonous men and women strangling the last remaining breath from our America.

And, I wrote the following for each of you and for every American who might now be willing to act, within every remaining legal mechanism, to halt the crimes and bring the criminals to justice, now.

The decision is ours: America or Not

At some point in the future, someone may read this.

Here is what I hope their response will be = "They got it and they did something about it."

That is not the response I have when I read books like Sebastian Hafner's "Defying Hitler."

We have one way to save the America of our Declaration of Independence, the America of our Constitution.

If we have to await other Nation's enacting sanctions and other penalties against the United States to halt our manifest and vast crimes against humanity (and our own citizens), then America is dead.

Sure, the geo-political entity called America today may still have the same name, but the meaning, the soul of America will be gone.

No other Nation began as our's did.

No other Nation, prior to America, was launched with the mandate explicit to our Declaration of Independence.

No other Nation, prior to America, began with a legal structure proclaimed by "We the People ... ."

The words of Jefferson ring loud and clear, today, because the threat he feared is now fully engaged in destroying America:

"Our rulers will become corrupt, our people careless ... the time for fixing every essential right on a legal basis is while our rulers are honest, and ourselves united. From the conclusion of this war we shall be going downhill. It will not then be necessary to resort every moment to the people for support. They will be forgotten, therefore, and their rights disregarded. They will forget themselves, but in the sole faculty of making money, and will never think of uniting to effect a due respect for their rights. The shackles, therefore, which shall not be knocked off at the conclusion of this war, will remain on us long, will be made heavier and heavier, till our rights shall revive or expire in a convulsion." -- Thomas Jefferson in "Notes on the State of Virginia", Query 17, p. 161, 1784

"Our rights" are being systematically destroyed.

America is being systematically destroyed.

The whole world knows it.

The one way we can not just restore America, but move it to a special place of hope for every person on the planet is if we act now to bring the criminals to justice.

We must not await others to do our job for us.

Every person who has taken the oath to defend our Constitution from all enemies, foreign and domestic is hear-by called to duty.

Every member of the legal and law enforcement profession, truly dedicated to defending America, must bring forth, through every available mechanism, the charges required to prosecute those who have aided and abetted Bush and Cheney.

Bush and Cheney must be impeached and tried.

Simultaneously, to whatever extent civil charges can be brought against them - by the Wilson's, by families of soldiers killed due to Bush and Cheney's lies, by whatever means, they must be brought to justice.

This is not a matter of elections and politics-as-usual -- because we have every reason to expect the election process of 2006 will be just as corrupt as those in 2000, 2002, 2004 and 2005 (OH in particular).

We must recognize the extent and severity of the crimes these people have committed against non-US citizens, as well as, the gross treason of their actions toward all US citizens.

It IS Tribunal Time In The United States of America

We the people ... must be the vectors of justice.

We the people ... must be the beacons of hope to those elsewhere who suffer injustice, by virtue of the fact that beginning in late 2005 we made justice stick in America.

The responsibility is ours and we have no excuses.

The decision is ours: America or Not

What will someone read about America, one, five, ten or more years now.

The decision is ours.

Peace.

[firefox]

1. The national debt

When Bush "took" office the national debt was $5.8 trillion. When January 20th comes you will be able to say that the national debt increased a half a trillion dollars for each of the five years * retained office. Not only are our freedoms being stolen. So is the national reputation, our standard of living, and our treasury.

When will the budget ever be balanced again? How can it be when the system is being sucked dry by the concentrations of wealth?

[understandinglife]

2. James Moore: "And maybe it is time for them to become the leaders."

<clip>

Ernestine Glossbrenner, the unlikliest of all politicians, decided to do something about what she was experiencing. She ran for the Texas legislature. And was elected. She drove her big, rattling car the 300 miles to Austin and figured out a way to live on the $7200 annual salary paid to Texas lawmakers. In return, she got to work 100 hour weeks writing and fighting for laws that would transform the state's educational system. She led a reform of Texas public schools that began the process of improving education for the state's underprivileged. Ernestine hated talking to reporters and was comfortable letting someone else take credit for her efforts, (and there was no shortage of people lining up to beat their chests.) She was a rarity: a true public servant who saw a problem, got involved to solve it, worked hard for no glory beyond the joy of doing good, and went away when her service was fulfilled.

We have these people in our country. But no one is calling to them. They do not hear leaders who inspire them nor do they believe in our processes the way they used to. And maybe it is time for them to become the leaders. We are all sick from the same disease. It eats at both of our political parties and who we believe ourselves to be as Americans. The president takes us to war without asking us to make sacrifices. Congress cuts taxes for corporate interests while trying to convince us it will get us a raise or pay for our health care at our job in the Wal-Mart stock room. It doesn't.

A nation that has no heroes, we have been told, is sad. A nation that needs them is even sadder. We don't need heroes. Our country, its people and its culture, is our hero, and we are letting its honor be darkened. America is full of Marlon Clendennings and Ernestine Glossbrenners and they need only to be asked or inspired. So let's ask them, and each other. We may be stumbling now. But we have not yet fallen.

I hear the words of a friend of mine rising over a fire in the clear night air of northern New Mexico. "We are the ones we have been waiting for."

From Half Awake In America by James Moore on November 23, 2005

Link:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jim-moore/half-awake-in-america_b_11176.html

Thank you James Moore.


Peace.

[mod mom]

3. I am certainly a lot more optimistic that things are heading in the right

direction. I feel the Fitz prosecutions will merge with the Franklin Spy case and the Abramoff/Delay Indictments into a grand convergence. Once the American people are made more aware of the despicable scoundrels that are inhabiting the WH we must press for full justice-awareness and correction of the past false elections, war crimes tribunals, and then laws enacted to see this abuse of power can never happen again.

Living in Ohio, I carried a heavy weight on my shoulders this past year feeling somewhat responsible for the bu$h administration wrecking havoc on the world. The last couple months have brought back that feeling we will overcome this ugly period in our history.

[understandinglife]

4. "The last couple months have brought back that feeling we will overcome

... this ugly period in our history."

I share in your optimism and am grateful for your friendship.

We have many reasons to be thankful tomorrow, and mostly imho, because of the incredible bonds of justice and respect for the truth that most of us Americans share.


Peace.

[mod mom]

5. I wish I shared your optimism in that "most" of us Americans share these

important values. I unfortunately feel there is a vast population simply along for the ride, too absorbed in their own lives to share in our value of justice and truth.

I too am thankful for your friendship as well as your words of wisdom. I know your writings and compilations have brought comfort and understanding to many of us at DU.

[Land Shark]

16. They may be more "buffeted" and "bewildered" than "absorbed" in self

of course, it all depends on the person. Sometimes a retreat to self is a survival strategy because the outside world is deemed hostile and unfriendly and unrewarding: as a repressive world necessarily must be and is.

[mod mom]

17. Of course it is a generalization, but I have alot of well educated friends

are too absorbed in their busy self-induced schedules to worry about the effects of BFEE on the environment, on the poor, on diplomacy or on basic human rights.

I watched Hotel Rwanda the other night and there is a line (paraphrased) about the horrendous scenes from the massacre being shown to the west and the hope that it will result in immediate action. The UN official (Nick Nolte) drinking a shot, sighs and says the west will be appalled and then return to their dinner. This describes the majority of our fellow Americans, I am afraid.

BTW, on a lighter note: where is my joke about veritas?

[Peace Patriot]

18. Justice and truth are elements of the "perennial philosophy" that most

people believe, and have believed virtually forever, or at least going back many thousands of years to the earliest days of our cultural (if not also our biological) evolution. They are built into our languages and wired into our brains. So, if some people --as you contend, "a vast population"--are simply "along for the ride," this may be merely a matter of appearances: they are too busy or distracted to reveal their bottom line beliefs; they are living in an unjust context and feel they have to shut up about what they believe; or, the propagandists--in our current circumstance, the war profiteering corporate news monopolies--falsely portray their views and you can't get an accurate picture of what many people think, etc.

I think that this is particularly true of our country, now, because there is such an intense, clever, long term propaganda effort to convince the progressive majority (whose hallmarks are a belief in justice and truth) that it is a minority. There are some cracks in that propaganda facade, for instance, all opinion polls--corporate news or not--show a huge disagreement between president and people on every major issue, foreign and domestic. 58% of the American people opposed the Iraq war before the invasion (Feb. '03) and that has hardly changed over the last two years (except to go up). 63% of the American people oppose torture "under any circumstances" (May '04). You name it. Social Security. The deficit. Women's rights. The great majority of Americans disagree with the fascist propagandists on everything, way up in the 60% to 70% range.

The corporate news monopolies do some of these polls, and then barely report them and never discuss them. In their presentation of news and opinion, they give a big trumpet to rightwing minority views--30% to 40% of the population (at best)--way out of proportion to their numbers, and in reverse proportion to what most people believe, because they are not news organizations any more; they are an arm of the government and other powermongers.

The powermongers have always been with us, too--and they have always been a tiny minority who see advantage in injustice and lies, and abandon the perennial philosophy for personal gain, or for a distorted view of gain to the community of which they are a part (the Nazis and brownshirts, for instance--or the Bushite Republicans, or violent Islamic jihadists, or the 'christian' witchburners of the Middle Ages). But when these types seize power, the perennial philosophy always reasserts itself and things are eventually put right (more aimed at justice and truth). ("The Perennial Philosophy" is a phrase--and a book--of Aldous Huxley's regarding the common themes in all religions and philosophies.)

There is also the truth that the vast majority of people are always, in some sense, "along for the ride." Progress is often generated by the few, whose good ideas are EMBRACED by the vast majority BECAUSE of the perennial philosophy (their inherent rightness). The people of the vast majority, who slog along in life never thinking much about things, might have thoughts about some injustice done to them or their neighbors, or some yearning for fairness or tolerance, but don't know how to change things--how to overcome their circumstances. Then a Martin Luther King or a Gandhi comes along--or a Thomas Jefferson--and shows them the way. And sometimes there is a grand historical convergence--a movement--where leaders and members achieve a common consciousness about an accumulation of lies and injustice that they all agree must be remedied. And there is sometimes a mixed bag, of course--where a seemingly ordinary woman like Rosa Parks takes action, and an MLK comes along to articulate that action and write it larger.

I think that it is particularly important at this time to be extremely careful about generalities and assumptions regarding what the American people believe. We have a problem like no other in history--in its intensity, anyway--of the propagandists convincing the progressive majority that they are alone, isolated, in the minority and that "I am the only one." Nothing could be further from the truth, but many people believe it--and think that the rightwing has somehow seized many peoples' mind, and/or that the country has gone insane. This CAN happen. I'm not saying it can't. I'm just saying it hasn't. (58% against the war. 63% against torture "under any circumstances. Think about it--on all major issues, in a range of polls.) (I also think the U.S. is rather too big and too multi-cultured to be seized in the way Germany was, for instance--although the power of the war profiteering corporate news monopolies to create what I call "reality-2", an entirely false picture of the country and of events, because of those news groups' PAST reputation for reliability, is rather scary.)

Personally, I am convinced that we have a great progressive majority in this country that has not swallowed the Bush propaganda--although they may think everyone else has--and their problem is not that they believe the lies, or have changed their views, but that they do not know what to do about it. They voted. That didn't work. The most active writer letters, call their congress critters, look for alternative info, keep doing what they're doing (being good citizens each in their own way), maybe even go to a protest, and none of that works. They are mystified, disempowered and disenfranchised, and they haven't yet figured out how that happened or what to do about it.

The electronic voting scam has happened too recently--and completely under the radar--for most people to have caught up with it. And, in order to "get it" (in a way that activates them), they have to abandon "reality-2" (the corporate news illusion, that they don't realize is almost 100% illusion), their faith that our democracy more or less works, and their faith in the Democratic Party leadership (if they are Democrats), at least on this issue. (Are the Democrats insane? I don't know. You'd think that Bushite corporations counting the votes with SECRET, PROPRIETARY programming code might cause a bit of objection, even from our corrupt, collusive, fearful leaders.)

When you can get the information to people--that the election system itself is now outright fraudulent--when you give them the facts, they understand. They of course want transparent elections. But they're still puzzled. ("Why isn't this in the news?"--or, the one that kills me, "Surely the Democrats wouldn't let that happen!").

So I think we have a problem not of what to do, but HOW to do it: how to get our power back, how to get our country back. How to get the will of the majority enforced. How to restore democracy. How to restore our right to vote.

Given transparent elections, I have no doubt that this country will quickly straighten itself out, and may end up the better for it all. Many people are already stepping out of the "vast population" that are "simply along for the ride," are undergoing an awakening, are re-committing to our founding democratic principles, and are looking around for what to do about this goddamned mess. I am heartened--as well by particular heroes. The Bushite fascism, and their greed and their failure, are acting like a catalyst to expose many wrongs. I just hope and pray that the fiddling of the elections that is now possible on a massive scale, and almost undetectably, gets seriously addressed, or the energy that is building up for '06 may be dissipated in bitterness and disappointment (as it was in '04); most people won't understand what happened, and it will be a long slog to enlighten them and re-energize them.

[understandinglife]

23. "... the fiddling of the elections that is now possible on a massive scale

... and almost undetectably, gets seriously addressed, or the energy that is building up for '06 may be dissipated in bitterness and disappointment (as it was in '04); most people won't understand what happened, and it will be a long slog to enlighten them and re-energize them."

Your comments, as always, are cogent and inspiring. I would want everyone to focus on the reality of your admonishment regarding what will happen in '06 if the insidious, corrupt, vote recording/tallying electronic systems are not opened for comprehensive scrutiny.

All our fellow citizens must be made aware of how easy it is, in many parts of the Nation, to defraud the recording of their vote.

I'm convinced that if our fellow citizens knew the truth about 2000 and 2004, coupled with all the lies that way more than 50 % of those polled now know characterize the Bush neoconster regime, that we'd have folk demanding paper ballots and demanding public scrutiny of vote tallying all the way from each precinct to each State's SoS final compilation.

Thank you and Happy Thanksgiving to you and your family.


Peace.

[mod mom]

28. It is the transparent election part that I am worried about. I recently

heard from an election reform activist from CA, who, confident after the recent dem victories, mentioned that perhaps the tide had changed. Those of us in Ohio, who worked countless hours on election reform initiatives to enable a fairer playing field, would beg to differ. It is business as usual as far as fair elections are concerned. In my neck of the woods we had the same vast deviations between polling and outcome. We had major problems documented in high Dem urban areas. Of course in Ohio, had the initiatives passed, it would have been the end of a political career for Mr. Blackwell, still overseer of our elections, and perhaps, assuming a change in party control in '06, a full investigation.

To the rest of the country, do not be lulled into complacency by recent victories. Our vote is still tainted and controlled. A few victories might be a strategy to take the heat off. Perhaps we have not seen more Republican deflections because they are confident that the repubs can procure victories for them. They can say, as they have said in the past, that there base came out in big numbers late. The Dems fell for it in 2000, 02, 04 and 05, so why should '06 be any different.

That said, the one ray of hope is the recent DNC resolution on electronic voting macines that came out 11/19/05. If they can stand behind their words united, we might get some needed correction. The question, of course is "IF".

[autorank]

44. So true

"Progress is often generated by the few, whose good ideas are EMBRACED by the vast majority BECAUSE of the perennial philosophy (their inherent rightness).

<snip>

Given transparent elections, I have no doubt that this country will quickly straighten itself out, and may end up the better for it all."

That is so true, IMHO.

[mod mom]

6. kick

[The Whiskey Priest]

7. As Things are Going

It appears that at some point in the future the law will become so perverted and skewed for the benefit of one class that history will demand the masses refuse to obey its dictates.

[tlsmith1963]

8. *We* Are the Patriots!

Since our side cares more about what America is truly supposed to stand for (and some thanks we get for it, huh?). The neocons & fundies want to change America into a dictatorship, the very thing that so many people escaped to come here. We fight someone like Hitler, only to turn into Hitler ourselves? It's just sick. Yes, we need to force these horrible people out of office. I've had my fill of them. I want America to be something I recognize again, not this awful place it's become.

Tammy

[In Truth We Trust]

9. Paper ballots NOW!!! Hand counts NOW!!! n/t

[texpatriot2004]

10. It is easier to come together now, rather than to overthrow Hitler II

aka *

[stellanoir]

11. this lengthy diatribe

linked to below, is inclusive of specific, albeit quirky methodology to expedite great and positive change, working with the new energies. . .

It is guaranteed to cheer you up.

I'm in agreement with your powerful post. It is up to all of us to particapate but I believe massive changes can occur through none traditional or conventional means.

Our voting mechanisms no longer are trustworthy, our media under reports millions of protestors and represses and discredits truth tellers. .

So it's time to get real creative.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=5444610&mesg_id=5444610

If you have not the time to read all three parts then just scroll down in Part 1 to. . .

"Weapons of Mass Reconstruction & Global Ameioration"

and just read 8 tricks. The 4th trick is explained in great specificity just below the "Fun Contract." There is a 9th trick a towards the end of part 3.

It's that easy to get started. . .

[understandinglife]

13. I am going to study this during the later part of today and will ...

... comment thereafter. Thank you for sharing the link.

Peace.

[Karenina]

12. Ground Control to Americans...

and QUICKLY.

[understandinglife]

14. I agree. I regret the typo in my OP. It represents the utter pain and ...

... exhaustion that accompanied my spending hours trying to crystallize the message.

When I read Steven C Clemons post, yesterday, the flood of emotions that I experienced on first viewing "A Man for All Seasons," returned, abruptly and vividly. I was draft age, overwhelmingly pissed at all the lies and death that already had transpired in Vietnam -- and that was almost two years before Tet, 1968.

The injustice toward our fellow black Americans, and immigrant farmer workers, ... all of it screamed a disregard for what America was supposed to mean, was supposed to be.

In those days, I thought it could get no worse.

On Saturday morning, December 9, 2000, I realized that it had gotten so much worse as to be almost unexplainable -- definitely unexplainable to most of our fellow citizens. They didn't have the background and they were not motivated to seek it. Mostly they were sick of hearing, 24/7, about the pitiful infidelity and perjury of an otherwise truly brilliant and dedicated President.

We have had not one day since Scalia's traitorous action on December 9, 2000 (enjoined by four more members of SCOTUS on December 12, 2000) that what I considered "as bad as it could get," didn't exceed that estimation. I was hoping that if I kept saying "as bad as it could get" that that would be true. Foolish me.

As Jefferson recognized, we have reached the point of convulsion. We either stop and prosecute these criminals or they are going close the opportunity, both legislatively and judicially.

Alito must be rejected.

Bush and Cheney must be impeached and brought to trial in the Senate AND then further prosecuted to the fullest extent of National and International law.

All the co-conspirators, co-criminals of the Bush neoconster regime must be driven from office and prosecuted within the full and just extent of the law.

We must establish a national literacy framework and provide immediate access to EVERY citizen the details of what is happening -- and, other than for very specific, easily defined purposes NO information is classified as to be withheld from US. We the People ... are America. Those whom we elect are merely our Representatives, NOTHING MORE.

And, now, it is time for us to fire a bunch of them. Not in 2006 or 2008 -- NOW.


Peace.

[Land Shark]

15. Seems to me like some are 'going nuclear' on Checks and Balances

I'm trying to do something legal about it, as plaintiff, to challenge secret electronic voting counting, and to void the contract for these machines on the grounds it is illegally altering our democratic elections against the people's right to know, effectively outsourcing democracy to a private vendor, where the counting of the vote becomes a trade secret -- literally the most sacred part of our democracy is now claimed to be fully owned AS PROPERTY and fully secret from the people of the United States.

This has been and is still continuing as a "conquest by contract". No act of the legislature required, merely by buying these machines democracy is altered and destroyed, and the people are now in the dark as to their own elections, and the checks and balances of our elections have been eliminated as well by the very same contracts to purchase electronic voting machines.

See the intro and pleadings at
www.votersunite.org/info/lehtolawsuit.asp

[Karenina]

19. Kudos to you, Land Shark!

You put it in.a.nutshell.

[understandinglife]

21. Yes. You recognized the issue and formulated an legal action of ...

... considerable precision.

The day that the majority of our fellow citizens know of what you have done and why you did it, they will be enabled to see just how skillfully a few traitors undermined their franchise. Combine a complicit corporate media with proprietary (secret) vote counting and one has no reason to ever expect an outcome any different than what we have confronted, increasingly, since 2000.

Thank you for what you are doing -- a clear demonstration of how much a difference one person can make.


Peace.

[Peace Patriot]

22. Lank shark, are you sure the legislatures are not involved? I had the...

...vague general impression that this was done (vendors trade secrets permitted in electronic voting systems) by statutue. ???

[understandinglife]

20. Closing moments for us to act -- "EU to quiz US on reports of CIA camps"

EU to quiz US on reports of CIA camps

By Katherine Baldwin
Thu Nov 24,10:29 AM ET

LONDON (Reuters) - The European Commission will seek answers from Washington on reports the CIA ran secret detention centers in Europe, the bloc's Justice Commissioner Franco Frattini said on Thursday.

The Washington Post newspaper reported this month the CIA had been interrogating suspected al Qaeda captives at a secret facility in eastern Europe that was part of a covert global prison system with sites in eight countries. Washington has refused to confirm or deny the report.

Frattini said Jonathan Faull, head of the commission's department for justice, freedom and security, was in Washington on other business but would seek details on the issue. "I asked him to raise also this point and to ask the U.S. authorities to inform me directly on whether and how these rumors are true or not," Frattini told Reuters in London.

<clip>

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20051124/ts_nm/security_eu_jails_dc;_ylt=Auqfo.39GAMf3aizXf3Ewhas0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTA3b2NibDltBHNlYwM3MTY-

The whole world is wathching -- each and every one of us.

The decision is ours: America, or not.


Peace.

[mod mom]

37. Although I wish the Europeans would stand up to the bullies (too kind

a term), I believe the impetus must come from within. We can't sit back and wait for change. The issues are too serious for slow action. That said, as an activist, I am frustrated by the lack of involvement of my fellow citizens. Last November, while organizing a protest in Ohio against the fraudulent elections, I believed it would be easy to draw 10,000-100,000 outraged citizens (in an area with a population of 1,000,000) out to protest. Instead, we had 1,500.

[Missy Vixen]

24. understandinglife, thank you for such a great post

I can't urge other DU'ers strongly enough to run for office in their communities. I am a former city councilmember in our town; I ran and I lost reelection, but I don't regret it. Did you all know that no matter how small the elected office, when you are sworn in, you will promise to uphold the Constitution against all enemies, foreign or domestic? We all have to do our part.

I understand that running for office costs money. I understand that you may lose (or even scarier, win.) It's a lot of hard work, and not especially glamorous. At the same time, we are the ones we've been waiting for, to quote the other writer. Holding elected office is not about what it will benefit you. It's about serving other people. We must retake and refashion the idea of public service to reflect a new reality. Our country is rotting from the inside due to the corruption of those who have no better reason for being in office than to reap benefits for themselves and their families.

We are the ones we've been waiting for.

Julie

[understandinglife]

25. "Our country is rotting from the inside due to the corruption of those who

... have no better reason for being in office than to reap benefits for themselves and their families."

This is very true for Bush, Cheney, DeLay, and many, many more.

We do have remarkable leadership from others, as you know well. The problem is they are increasingly marginalized by those with vast personal wealth, propagandist corporate media, and other special interests all too willing to have America ruled, instead of governed. The irony is not lost on any of us that the Declaration of Independence addressed the tyranny and crimes of one George and today we must address the crimes and tyranny of another George.

Rather than revolution, what we need is a Tribunal and a massive effort to cause every citizen of America to demand that their vote is counted precisely as they intend.

By holding these criminals accountable before the law and by ensuring that we have no reason ever to doubt the outcome of an election, we will have taken the two crucial first steps toward an America that leads through truth, ethics and rigorous accountability in all matters, foreign and domestic.

Thank you for your wonderful comments and Happy Thanksgiving to you and your family.

Peace.

[jokerman93]

26. happy thanksgiving understanglife

I've been noticing your posts for (I think) the last week, maybe two, around here. You give a good impression and your words ring true. I keep noticing lately how we need good leaders.

Best wishes.

J.

[understandinglife]

27. Happy Thanksgiving to you, jokerman93! And, thank you for your comments.

Peace.

[understandinglife]

29. Steve Clemons - "and that was the beginning and end of the story."

... the combination of a low Congressional bar for this war combined with the President's preconceived desire to take out Hussein and invade Iraq led to distortion, fabrication, and manipulation of fundamental realities about Iraq's WMD capacity.

Moreover, even among serious analysts who believed that Iraq might have nascent bio or chemical weapons programs, few believed that they were robust -- justifying an invasion of the scale America engaged in. Brent Scowcroft and James Baker were leading opponents of such an invasion, arguing that even if Hussein had modest programs, he was containable and manageable as a threat.

Bush and Cheney wanted to go to war and punished and beat up all those who stood in their way -- and that was the beginning and end of the story.

Link:

http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/001105.html

That's the Scowcroft and Baker who still report to Poppy Bush.


It IS Tribunal Time in the United States of America


Peace.

[understandinglife]

30. Jofi Joseph: "It’s Not About the Yellowcake"

It’s Not About the Yellowcake

By Jofi Joseph

Posted November 2005

The Bush administration’s most critical deception leading up to the war in Iraq had nothing to do with Valerie Plame or yellowcake from Niger.

<clip>

As the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence continues the second phase of its investigation into prewar intelligence, it must assess how and why the trumped-up intelligence on aluminum tubes came to form the heart of President Bush’s campaign for war.

Link:

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/story/cms.php?story_id=3312

It IS Tribunal Time in the United States of America


Peace.

[understandinglife]

31. Murray Waas: Key Bush Intelligence Briefing Kept From Hill Panel

Key Bush Intelligence Briefing Kept From Hill Panel

By Murray Waas, special to National Journal

Tuesday, Nov. 22, 2005

Ten days after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, President Bush was told in a highly classified briefing that the U.S. intelligence community had no evidence linking the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein to the attacks and that there was scant credible evidence that Iraq had any significant collaborative ties with Al Qaeda, according to government records and current and former officials with firsthand knowledge of the matter.

<clip>

Those grievances were also perhaps illustrated by comments that Vice President Cheney himself wrote on one of Feith's reports detailing purported evidence of links between Al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein. In barely legible handwriting, Cheney wrote in the margin of the report:

"This is very good indeed … Encouraging … Not like the crap we are all so used to getting out of CIA."

Link:

http://nationaljournal.com/about/njweekly/stories/2005/1122nj1.htm

"Fixing the intelligence to ...." -- It IS Tribunal Time In The United States of America


Peace.

[mod mom]

32. this is the most damning to the administration in that it supports the

opinion that they were hand picking intelligence to fit their agenda.

[understandinglife]

33. Agreed. It is an affirmation of the "fixing" in the "Downing St minutes".

Peace.

[Karenina]

36. Some days I find it difficult

to understand WHAT'S NOT TO GET? The information is there for the taking.

[Independent_Liberal]

34. Right! The decision is ours.

Impeach the Fascist, Fraudulent, Fear-Mongering Bush Regime!

:)

[bonito]

35. The decision is mine alone

I will stand up on my own, alone, strength in numbers ignored, I come here alone, I pass alone as well. I will stand for life, that is the only thing I know. Peace

[understandinglife]

38. Iranian president calls for war crimes charges on US

Iranian president calls for war crimes charges on US

26/11/2005 - 13:57:23

Iran’s hard-line president called for the Bush administration to be tried on war crimes charges related to Iraq and denounced the West for its stance on Iran’s controversial nuclear programme, state-run television reported today.

“You, who have used nuclear weapons against innocent people, who have used uranium ordnance in Iraq should be tried as war criminals in courts,” Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said in an apparent reference to the US.

<clip>

Since the 2003 start of the Iraq war, US forces have reportedly fired at least 120 tons of shells packed with depleted uranium, which is an extremely dense material used by the US and British militaries for tank armour and armour-piercing weapons. Once fired, the shells melt, vaporise and turn to dust.

<clip>

“They say Iran has to stop its peaceful nuclear activity since there is a probability of diversion while we are sure that they are developing and testing (nuclear weapons) every day,” Ahmadinejad said. “They speak as if they are the lords of the world.”

Link:
http://www.breakingnews.ie/2005/11/26/story232183.html

What are "We the People ..." awaiting before we launch the War Crimes Tribunal of the USA"?


Peace.

[lonestarnot]

39. soodamnwho understandinglife!

[understandinglife]

40. Nicholas Kristof: "How much genocide is too much?"

<clip>

"They told me they just wanted to die," the aid worker remembered in frustration. "They're living like slaves, in complete and utter fear. And we can't do anything about it."

That aid worker has found her own voice, by starting a blog called "Sleepless in Sudan" in which she describes what she sees around her. It sears at http://sleeplessinsudan.blogspot.com, without the self-censorship that aid groups routinely accept as the price for being permitted to save lives in Darfur.

Our leaders still haven't found their voices, though. Congress has even facilitated the genocide by lately cutting all funds for the African Union peacekeepers in Darfur; we urgently need to persuade Congress to restore that money.

So what will it take? Will President Bush and other leaders discover some backbone if the killing spreads to Chad and the death toll reaches 500,000? One million? God forbid, two million?

How much genocide is too much?
http://select.nytimes.com/2005/11/27/opinion/27kristof.html?hp=&pagewanted=print

Anyone incapable of seeing the connection ...


Peace.

[mod mom]

41. Has anyone here researched how to initiate a war crimes tribunal?

[understandinglife]

42. I'm working on it and have truly meant my request that lawyers and ...

... constitutional experts take the task as a necessary endeavor to save our America. I wish I had spent the past thirty + years studying the law instead of biology. If I had, I would be working on nothing but bringing these criminals to justice.

I cannot understand how anyone can avoid the hard, cold reality that the only path to restoring legitimacy to America passes directly through a major war crimes trial process.

These are not just words. Bush and his neoconster gang have broken all the big laws -- planning war of aggression, conducting war of aggression, torture, murder of innocents, destruction of private property, occupation of a sovereign nation, thievery of national resources and other forms of capital, ....

They are WAR CRIMINALS -- and, SO ARE WE, if we do not bring them to justice before others do.

These are not just words.

No one in the history of the world has "gotten away" with this type of behavior without retribution.

America will not escape accountability.

The major and only opportunity to transcend these crimes and be the America most of us recognize as the heritage we want to impart to future generations is to charge and prosecute these criminals rather than have other Nations become the vector of justice and retribution.


Peace.

[mod mom]

46. This will be my new argument, as I stated in you F Rich post, that

if we don't act promptly with the knowledge of what has transpired, then we too are complicit with the war criminals.

[mod mom]

47. Here is a link to implementation of War Crimes Tribunals

"National governments and international institutions initiate and organize tribunals and commissions, often under pressure from citizens, NGOs, and international organizations to address wrongs committed."


http://www.caii.com/CAIIStaff/Dashboard_GIROAdminCAIIStaff/Dashboard_CAIIAdminDatabase/resources/ghai/toolbox23.htm

It appears that our pressure must be made to international organizations, as there is little hope of convincing our government of their horrific crimes.

[autorank]

43. You bring back the VERY BEST of the founders and their spirit...

It really sends chills down my spine! Thank you so much. I feel Jefferson's spirit of outrage every day just 90 or so miles from his home and it's balanced by Washingtons clever pragmatism just 15 or so miles away. We have the best of their words and examples. What more do we need.

Highly RECOMMENDED

[DemReadingDU]

45. UL, thanks for all you do!