Our President is a Criminal 

By Daniel Patrick Welch

07/12/03: It's well past time to say it. Despite the weaseling and 
finger-pointing--in fact, because of it--the Forged Niger letter is 
indeed the smoking gun, and the chips have yet to stop falling. 
Who wrote the damn thing, and on whose orders? Who cares whether Tenet, 
his job on the line, acquiesced to including a literal truth that actually 
amounts to one of the great frauds of the century? The sheer audacity and 
cynicism of this coterie of hacks and hustlers is simply astounding. As a 
teacher, I won't let six-year-olds get away with such transparent sophistry. 
The bottom line is that Bush knew the information was bogus, and used it 
anyway to convince millions to go along with his phony war.  

For that alone, for the memory of the thousands of dead Iraqis and 
Americans, he deserves the il Duce treatment (figuratively speaking, 
Mr. Ashcroft - no need to start tapping my phone or putting me on no-fly 
lists). The criminal enterprise called the Bush administration is (Helen 
Thomas was right) the worst ever. Their campaign in furtherance of the 
conspiracy to defraud the public into buying the Iraq war is one of the 
the most cynical abuses of power in U.S. history. It deserves to be 
treated as such.  

Alarmist? You bet. This guy already thinks (and occasionally tells 
foreign leaders) that he gets his orders from God. If these radical 
extremists can get away with this, then the dumbing down of America 
will be complete, and the stage will be set for the next wave of the 
nascent fascism. La Cosa Bush (apologies to the mafia) is, like all 
crime families, violent, arrogant, and beyond the reach of the law
-- so far. Bush's handlers no longer even have the decency, courage 
or self-restraint to prevent his criminally stupid comments from 
wreaking havoc around the globe. Was last week's pseudo-macho invitation 
to "Bring 'em on" even a mistake? Or was it another calculated ploy to 
make him look "tough" to the American people, playing to the ugliest 
side of the American psyche while once again enraging thinking people 
the world over. No matter -- he must be stopped. This cabal has been 
lying, cheating, and manipulating national tragedy to force their 
right wing agenda down our throats long enough.  

And half-measures won't do any more. None of this vague safe rhetoric 
about "misleading" or cautious calls for those who "know who
they are" 
to step down. WE know who they are, the junta that has hijacked our 
government and our national agenda. The cartel must go: Bush, Cheney, 
Powell, Rice, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Perle should all resign, be fired or
impeached immediately, before their conspiracy of lies and their 
mutual pact of self-protection is allowed to further endanger the 
country and the world. Cornered criminals, especially stupid ones, are 
a dangerous lot, and there is no telling to what lengths they will go to 
cover their own behinds.  

On a mission from God, installed by a viciously partisan Supreme 
Court, the skids are greased for a further slide into misadventure, 
bankruptcy and ruin. With the addition of Congress on their side, they 
are acting with particularly reckless abandon -- and impeachment is not 
in the cards as long as the GOP circles the wagons. None will have the 
courage or integrity Goldwater showed when he told Nixon the jig was 
up. Power corrupts, and the Republicans are so drunk with it they won't 
turn on their Lord Fauntleroy until he robs a bank on camera in broad 
daylight.  

But that is no reason not to tell the truth: whatever their chances, 
some of the braver souls in congress should introduce impeachment 
legislation immediately: Conyers, Kucinich, Lee, Paul? The media has 
already shown they will not help; moneyed interests overwhelmingly 
favor the right. A campaign based on the old game of raising oodles 
of money and buying ads is a sure failure. The only thing that can save 
us now is a grassroots, velvet revolution, the principled, impassioned 
movement calling for these people's head on a spike.  

And maybe, just maybe, this one isn't an impeachable offense, but I'm 
just plain getting sick of Rumsfeld's smug, arrogant grin on the tube. 
What the hell is he smiling at all the time? Is it funny, somehow, that 
thousands of Iraqi civilians are dead after his "precision" bombing? It 
is ironic, admittedly, another fraud, to be sure-but hardly amusing. 
Maybe it's just part of what you do when you think you can get away with 
anything.  

Senate Intelligence Chair Pat Roberts foreshadowed just how twisted 
the logic is going to get when he said that what concerns him most "is 
what appears to be a campaign of press leaks by the CIA in an effort 
to discredit the president," Yeah, right. The black bag set, whose 
penchant for secrecy and service verges on pathology, are the real 
problem here--not the curious fact that even some of them have finally 
decided that things are so bad that someone, somewhere has to speak 
out.  

It's time to close the curtain on this Bizarro World. Saddam loyalists
-- not nationalist resistance to occupation--are the real problem in Iraq. 
Protesters are terrorists, but we are fighting for our freedoms. Bush's 
popularity remains robust, yet huge shows of force and repressive rules 
on free speech are needed to keep the viewing public from seeing that 
he is dogged by prostest at every turn. War is peace, freedom is 
slavery, and some animals are more equal than others. The lies won't 
stop until we fire the liars.  

(c) 2003 Daniel Patrick Welch. Reprint permission granted.  

Welch lives and writes in Salem, Massachusetts, USA, with his wife, 
Julia Nambalirwa-Lugudde. Together they run The Greenhouse School. 
He has appeared on radio [interview available here] Past articles, 
translations are available at danielpwelch. We would appreciate your 
linking to us.  

Copyright http://www.danielpwelch.com/

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Source: Information Clearinghouse ...
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article4073.htm

Cheers, Steve..

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