Bush Whacked

Out with the old! Hooray! But continue to prosecute their war crimes:

Impeach Vice-President Dick "the Dark" Cheney, Torturer.

There's still time, but this is a limited time offer! Then we can move to the war crimes trial, and especially the war crimes trial at the Hague (but we can presumably do those things after his term).

2014: Cheney did torture -- but it turns out he did it badly.

Then, when we're done with him, we'll

Impeach His Little Friend George, Too.

(Proposed Articles of Impeachment)

He's not been quite the torture enthusiast that Dick has, but he's got blood on his hands. We should also see that he's tried for war crimes. He's certainly lived up to this assessment of him.

Just skewer torture-proponent David Addington, Cheney's Cheney: after all, as Jesus said, "Torture others as you would have them torture you." Or at least waterboard him: after all, administration advisors maintains that it's legal.

Detainee Tortured, Says U.S. Official (Wed Jan 14 23:09:02 EST 2009)

Cheney admits signing off on torture (Washington Times interview, Cheney's office -- this is an official White House release!):
"And after 9/11, we badly needed to acquire good intelligence on the enemy. That's an important part of fighting a war. What we did with respect to al Qaeda high-value detainees, if I can put it in those terms, I think there were a total of about 33 who were subjected to enhanced interrogation; only three of those who were subjected to waterboarding -- Khalid Sheik Mohammed, Abu Zubaydah, and a third, al Nashiri. That's it, those three guys.

"Was it torture? I don't believe it was torture. We spent a great deal of time and effort getting legal advice, legal opinion out of the Office of Legal Counsel, which is where you go for those kinds of opinions, from the Department of Justice as to where the red lines were out there in terms of this you can do, this you can't do. The CIA handled itself, I think, very appropriately. They came to us in the administration, talked to me, talked to others in the administration, about what they felt they needed to do in order to obtain the intelligence that we believe these people were in possession of.

"I signed off on it; others did, as well, too. I wasn't the ultimate authority, obviously. As the Vice President, I don't run anything. But I was in the loop. I thought that it was absolutely the right thing to do. I thought the legal opinions that were rendered were sound. I think the techniques were reasonable in terms of what they were asking to be able to do. And I think it produced the desired result. I think it's directly responsible for the fact that we've been able to avoid or defeat further attacks against the homeland for seven and a half years."

Dick is Sick: Just Say "No!" to Torture (a letter to my elected officials). I've also signed this Amnesty International Pledge: "The America I believe in doesn't torture people or use cruel, inhuman treatment; doesn't hold people without charge, without fair trials, without hope, and without end; doesn't kidnap people off the street and ship them to nations known for their brutality; doesn't justify the use of secret prisons; and does not rob people of their basic dignity."

Oops, looks like Dick and George accidently tortured an innocent Canadian, but the US authorities aren't cooperating with the Canadian authorities in their investigation (AP, 9/19/2006)

Bush lies on torture (and the economy, by the way) again (10/5/2007): "This government does not torture people." Bush: the "man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest." This just out (10/14/2008): Bush administration gave nod for CIA waterboarding (The Washington Post)

And let's forget this "War"...

Call home the troops from george bush's Iraq Adventure (and experiment in financial attrition: as of December 2005, each American citizen has racked up a bill of $2000 for the war on terror -- have you gotten your money's worth? My family's in for $8000; I'm sure that our sons Tchapo and Thad won't mind paying that some day...when george, dick, and I are dead.)
"Cost of Iraq war could surpass $1 trillion: Estimates vary, but all agree price is far higher than initially expected." MSNBC webpage, March 17, 2006 ($1 trillion would put it at $3333 per person). Does it bother anyone else that these neo-cons low-balled their estimates (ridiculous numbers, like 5 billion) to get us into an unjustified adventure that has enriched their companies (e.g. Halliburton) to the tune of untold billions?

(Feb 28, 2008) The cost of the war has been revised upwards: The Three Trillion Dollar War, by Nobel-Prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz, tells it -- but not all, as he also suggests that the rest of the world will pay three trillion dollars more, as well.

Now they're spying on us! Did you know that you're a suspect? We ALL ARE....

Let's see: that makes

So much to love about this administration! Bush's labor department's 2006 report showed that real wages are down again, for the third year in a row (source ). The rich get richer, the poor get poorer, and Bush touts his economy? I've got some news that compassionate conservatives must not have heard, George: 17% of American children live below the poverty line (over 20% in Kentucky): how's that for success?

Actually I've found the WMD: it's Bush! It was there all along. He's destroyed Iraq, of course, and thousands upon thousands of lives; he's destroyed our traditional friendships in favor of friendships with Pakistan and Saudi Arabia; he's destroyed the budget surplus; he's working hard to destroy the environment. He's da bomb, to die for....

Maybe it's David Addington: he's the WMD, a stealth missile. No one's heard of him, but he's in charge, since he's in charge of Cheney.

Hear more on NPR

The historian Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., who defined Nixon as the extreme example of Presidential over-reaching in his book "The Imperial Presidency" (1973), said he believes that Bush "is more grandiose than Nixon." As for the Administration's legal defense of torture, which Addington played a central role in formulating, Schlesinger said, "No position taken has done more damage to the American reputation in the world -- ever." (From the New Yorker's article on David Addington)

Pre-emptive warfare waged under false pretenses IS a moral issue....

We must keep an eye on Bush and his gang of rogue elephants: `... a NEWSWEEK investigation shows that, as a means of pre-empting a repeat of 9/11, Bush, along with Defense Secretary Rumsfeld and [former] Attorney General John Ashcroft, signed off on a secret system of detention and interrogation that opened the door to such methods. It was an approach that they adopted to sidestep the historical safeguards of the Geneva Conventions, which protect the rights of detainees and prisoners of war. In doing so, they overrode the objections of Secretary of State Colin Powell and America's top military lawyers.and they left underlings to sweat the details of what actually happened to prisoners in these lawless places. While no one deliberately authorized outright torture, these techniques entailed a systematic softening up of prisoners through isolation, privations, insults, threats and humiliation -- methods that the Red Cross concluded were ``tantamount to torture."' (source: Newsweek, May 24th, 2004: The Roots of Torture)

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