Why are we "Looking Forward"?
64
For the life of me, I don't undertand. Why are we "looking forward" before coming to grips with and rectifying the past? I've heard the reasons....not good for the country to focus on the negative, not possible to hold anyone accountable anyway, not provable crimes. Or this one: Obama wants immunity for the crimes he intends to commit.
What kind of a county have we become anyway? What happened to accountability and how about this simple one; Law and Order? Or do these things just apply to welfare mothers, poor people and enemies of the State?
Most disturbing of all is hearing now how certain right-wing sectors are speaking of impeaching president Obama....this takes my breath away with incredulity. You are going to slide right over the last administration, yet go after this one? Incredible. Let's review just a smidgeon of the gluttony of corruption that was the Bush administration; some of the actions of these three faces I have put up here. Let's refresh our memories a little, shall we? And then you can tell me what you intend to impeach President Obama for. Deal?
First is the former Attorney General of the United State of America, Alberto Gonzales.
This guy is some piece of work. I did my first double-take on him when he was testifying before the House or Senate (can't remember which) about a letter he said Bush had him write to the Department of Justice. Basically, it was a scam concocted by Bush (or Cheney) to provide cover for their illegal wiretapping. Gonzales wrote in this letter that the "Gang of Eight"--select members of the House and Senate-- approved of Bush's illegal wiretapping. Well, you know what? They didn't.
Jay Rockefeller, one of the "Eight" said this: "the Administration never afforded members briefed on the program an opportunity to either approve or disapprove the NSA program." (emptywheel, July 24, 2007)
So Gonzales was lying for his boss GW. And the disturbing thing is, he had such a joking manner about it! Like it was all some big joke or something. I'm not kidding. Watch this:
TPMtv: Alberto Gonzales:Lying Liar Edition
Do you remember that? He and Andrew Card went to Ashcrofts' hospital bed while he was sick and tried to get him to sign off on the illegal wiretapping...While he was in a hospital bed...probably barely conscious! What was the urgency? Because Congress was voting to end it or expand it the next day.
And speaking of Andrew Card, how is it that he got the job as Chief of Staff to Bush? He was a minor politician from Boston....What qualifications did he have to be COS? The answer may be hidden in a story from New England involving convicts, dead prostitutes and HW Bush. You can find speculation about it by going here: 11 women killed; Does anyone care? But you must read the comments section to get the inference. It just always struck me as odd that he got that job...like what kind of favor was being returned?
But, of course, that whole situation was just to allow that administration to break the law unhindered. And they had the help of one particular Democrat, too. Jane Harman, of "spying for Israel" fame.
emptywheel Monday April 20, 2009:
"As I explained in the last post, CQ is reporting that NSA intercepts caught Jane Harman agreeing to help AIPAC avoid criminal charges in exchange for AIPAC’s support for her to get the House Intelligence Chair. That post suggests Harman was willing to intervene in a criminal case in hopes of getting a powerful Chairmanship of a committee.
But the story also shows Alberto Gonzales’ efforts to ensure support from those members of Congress who didn’t object to the illegal wiretap program. Gonzales spiked an investigation into Harman because he needed her to support the Administration as news of the warrantless wiretap program broke in 2005.
The Justice Department was prepared to open a case on her, but Attorney General Gonzales intervened.
Gonzales said he “needed Jane” to help support the administration’s warrantless wiretapping program, which was about to be exposed by the New York Times.
Harman, he told Goss, had helped persuade the newspaper to hold the wiretap story before, on the eve of the 2004 elections. And although it was too late to stop the Times from publishing now, she could be counted on again to help defend the program"
This is corroberated here:
EXCLUSIVE…Bush’s Law: Eric Lichtblau on Exposing the NSA’s Warrantless Wiretapping Program and How the White House Pressured the New York Times to Kill the Story
So that is but one thing Gonzales was invoved in. And think about it...he was the highest-ranking prosecutor of crime in the country!
Oh well, in the Alice in Wonderland world of crazy people, what matters? Holding onto power, that's what. Or perhaps they were all doing someone else's bidding, who knows? Either way, Ozzie and Harriet they were not.
And speaking of Ozzie...the guy with the butch-cut...our favorite snake-oil salesman, number two on the list...Donald Rumsfeld.
Rumsfeld: Architect of torture
The secretary of defense began laying the groundwork for detainee abuse years before Abu Ghraib.
BY MIKE MADDEN
Download the entire Senate Armed Services Committee report here. Read about how the Bush administration may have pressured interrogators to use torture to extract information linking al-Qaida to Saddam Hussein here.
WASHINGTON -- "When Donald Rumsfeld heard about plans to force detainees at Guantánamo Bay to stand for hours on end, in order to soften them up and make them talk to U.S. interrogators, he made a joke about it.
As a newly released Senate Armed Services Committee report makes clear, the effects of Rumsfeld's cavalier attitude toward what the report calls "detainee abuse" -- and what international law would probably call torture -- didn't just stop at the military prison on Cuba. The techniques Rumsfeld approved for use at Guantánamo oozed into prisons in Afghanistan and Iraq, undermining decades of U.S. policy about humane treatment of detainees and leading to some of the worst outrages of the Bush administration, including the Abu Ghraib abuses."
There's that attitude again...cavalier. As if it was all a big joke. Well, it was no joke to the rest of the world, and the rest of us here in this country. Or to the ones who have to pay for their crimes.
Janis Karpinski to Dick Cheney: Where Were You Five Years Ago?
Then of course, there was the "war" on Iraq and WMD's:
YouTube - Donald Rumsfeld lies.
But really, it's nothing new for an operative like Rumsfeld. He's been around for a long long time. From putting Aspartame into our food supply, to really sinister stuff with his old buddy Dick:
The Abuse of Iraqi Prisoners is Nothing New
I'm still trying to understand why these people aren't brought up on charges. There must be some deep-seated, claw-digging corruption in our system to allow this to go unpunished. Oh what a naive child I am.
But look!...Condi and Colin were honest at one time in their lives! Must have been politically expedient.
YouTube - Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice Tell The Truth ...
Which brings us to our last face on the list...Condi Rice. (did you know she owns a house with a woman last named Beans? Their mortgage says Rice and Beans! it's true)
By Robert Parry
April 3, 2006
"During the three years of carnage in Iraq, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has shifted away from her now-discredited warning about a “mushroom cloud” to assert a strategic rationale for the invasion that puts her squarely in violation of the Nuremberg principle against aggressive war.
Rice’s comments in Blackburn, England, followed similar remarks during a March 26 interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press” in which she defended the invasion of Iraq as necessary for the eradication of the “old Middle East”where a supposed culture of hatred indirectly contributed to the terror attacks on Sept. 11, 2001.
But this doctrine – that the Bush administration has the right to invade other nations for reasons as vague as social engineering – represents a repudiation of the Nuremberg Principles and the United Nations Charter’s ban on aggressive war, both formulated largely by American leaders six decades ago."
Rice denies approving use of torture - 4 May 09
So here we have it again...the attitude of anything we say goes. And she could get very angry if people dared to question her too. But maybe the worst thing about Condi was this; the day after Hurricane Katrina, she was in Europe shopping for shoes! Secretary of State and you can't be here for people in the midst of an emergency? I'm sorry--these people are either crazy or psychopaths. How can it be anything else?
Watch for Desperate Psychopaths
Or maybe it's me who's crazy.
And I know we've been through all this before...I just wanted to remind us who forget how bad it was...just how bad it was! And to make light of it is an insult. And to say Obama is worse, or just as bad....I'm waiting for the proof on that, cause so far it's not even close.
Well, I'll leave you with this depressing thought:
CommentsLoading...
Hi voice!!
My sentiments, exactly! Holder and Emanuel need to step down, and Obama needs to get some fire-breathers behind him. Everyone is sOOOO afraid of the right wing; and all those people you mentioned are retired with a boatload of money they made during the last administration and/or they have cushy university jobs. Just wonderful! Now another generation of young people will be brainwashed into believing that the last administration was good government, and the government trying to clean up after the elephant is a poor one. LOL
I know...and did you hear Bush's book is out?
God, i'm going to be sick.
And this is not even the worst of it...it's really so awful people couldn't handle it..I'll just say Cathy O'Brien and the TranceFormation of America...it's on the web too.
Like the paedohile rings? nothing new. And what is really going on???
I think the umbrage tens of millions of folks take at Obama is the fact that he is moving swiftly toward Socialism—a failed system (see Greece or USSR or North Korea) and that he has surrounded himself with revolutionary radical Marxists. These dangers are not imagined. They are real.
Well--then where were they when the PNAC Zionists ran our country to the ground???
They were real and dangerous too, and all we heard was rah rah rah and the rest of you shut up.
But if you say that is the reason I'll consider it. I just think it runs deeper than that, or they would have gunned after Bush just as hard and they did nothing.
I don't quite follow the Zionists reference? Zionists are running America?
Yes, that is what I believe. Dual-citizen gvt officials and think-tank members were running our gvt. Maybe still are...
And you know--it just strikes me as very very odd that Helen Thomas would catch such heat, when others say worse everyday against the president! Who is in charge here? Why is Israel more important than the president??
That Helen Thomas had been wacko for quite some time. Israel is our only true friend in that region, and the only free democracy as opposed the authoritarian countries that surround them—and that lose sleep trying to invent new ways to destroy them. To suggest that the Jews should simply go back to Auschwitz and Dachau is fairly insensitive methinks.
Nooo, she said go back to Poland and Germany...the countries where Israel recruited and paid them to leave!
They do that here too....recruit people to go there and take land from Palestinians ie become settlers. And it comes out of the $7 million that WE give them everyday.
That means I am a party to that crime against my will.
They are no friend to us in my opinion...they just want our money, weapons and soldiers.
AND they spy on us on a regular basis....why?
You can google and see the huge spy-center they are building there...massive, they compare it to the Vatican.
And I love Helen Thomas...only reporter who is real.
They are an occupying force, and they have nuclear weapons...meaning it is unlawful for us to give them aide.
The Goldstone Report said it all....and no one cared.
It's pathetic! We are owned. Some free country!
Palestinian groups, including Hamas, have been responsible for launching more than 10,000 rockets and mortars at Israeli cities. In November, 2008 alone, over 120 rockets and mortars were fired at Israeli cities, injuring hundreds of people.
The fundamental truth is that Israel did all it could to avoid causing civilian casualties and Hamas did all it could to cause them.
All this report does is offer lip service to years and years of suffering: "The Mission has determined that the rockets and, to a lesser extent, mortars, fired by the Palestinian armed groups are incapable of being directed towards specific military bjectives and were fired into areas where civilian populations are based." Pathetically inaccurate way to describe the 15 seconds a mother has to shield her child; a father has to find shelter for his family.
It is also important to note that others turned down the offer to head the commission, realizing that the mission was flawed from the outset. Mary Robinson, who has never been considered a friend of Israel by any stretch of the imagination, chose honor above "glory" when she refused the job:
"I refused to accept the invitation from the president of the Human Rights Council at the time, Ambassador Martin Uhomoibhi of Nigeria, to lead the investigation following the Human Rights Council's January 12, 2009 resolution. As a former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, I felt strongly that the Council's resolution was one-sided and did not permit a balanced approach to determining the situation on the ground....
I was also aware that the UN Human Rights Council had made repeated condemnations of Israel over the past two years but had focused little attention on large-scale violations of human rights in other countries. This pattern of action and inaction by the Council has given greater credence to those who believe the UN’s highest human rights body is inherently anti-Israel."
Respectfully disagree.
thevoice 2 years ago
powerful political hub read write thanks much