Why isn't bush recieving an impeachment?

[hypewaders]

Re: Spain

I've lived there, so of course I've witnessed Spaniards weathering terrorist bombings (ETA's been at it there for a very long time). They don't collectively react the way Americans have, and the difference is experience. Of course personal trauma and loss is the same for all people of all cultures, but the nationalistic cultures vary a great deal.

I also have lived in Lebanon, where a long orgy of terrorism finally flatlined in terms of changing anybody's policy. Beirutis would go back in shops while the glass was still being swept up, while blood was barely cleaned up, get back to the most mundane things of life with a collective pride, and a concerted collective disinterest in whatever cause the perpetrators may have attacked in the name of. With no thought of government making it all better for them. No thoughts of a crusade of revenge to stamp out the evil ones. Instead there was a compulsion to endure. Watch Lebanon now: For all the immense pressures on them again at this time, they will endure. They have made moderates out of Hezb'ollah. Think about that.

True counterterrorism is to be highly resistant to provocation, and to be a realist about the fact that life has no guarantees. Successful terrorists feed in partnership with fearmongers in authority. The key difference to me in comparing recent Spanish and American experriences with terrorism is that the sitting Spanish government was rapidly brought down at the first public whiff of government eploiting the Madrid Bombing. Americans clamored for government to just go kill some foreign brown people somehere, and are reassured by the Barn door slamming long after the cows are out: inconvenienced at airports, numbed by doublespeak from Washington.

Comparing Spain to America, two places I love, highlights for me what insulation and inexperience can mean a nation confronts audacious political criminality such as terrorism. In Spain, many people lost lives, limbs, loved ones- but the terrorist act had very unpredictable results, and did not provoke Spanish overextension in foreign policy- It was quite the opposite.

 

[BHS]

Okay then. Though I think America's truest friends showed their colours over the past half decade. England, Australia, the former Eastern block countries typified by Poland, and also India and Pakistan in a pinch. (Musharraf took some pretty serious lumps for supporting the US and didn't waver.) Canada has Multiple Personality Disorder regarding the US - the average Canadian will claim to dislike or even hate America when asked, but this is largely superficial. He would do anything in his power to help defend the US if it were ever attacked.

You're really "sticking" to the tarbaby analogy, meaning that the US is going to be stuck in the Middle East for a long time come. I guess it's an appropriate prediction in that yes, the US is still "occupying" Germany and Japan sixty years after the end of war there. Oh well. The Germans and Japanese don't seem to mind, and in fact they caterwaul madly whenever the US threatens to pull out.

I doubt that your prediction of an Arab/Euro alliance is going to come true. More likely, the Arab world will simply swallow Europe whole. Not our problem, and not our doing. It's a matter of simple demographics as much as anything else.

And yes, Asia is the area of the world experiencing the most growth, which appears to be concurrent with their trend towards adopting Western cultural standards and political systems. Funny, that.

 

[hypewaders]

The defeated Axis had contrite, morally defeated populations. Those occupations can hardly be compared with the occupation of Iraq, which is much uglier. We don't have the moral mandate in Iraq that we had in Germany and Japan, and that difference will always be significant.

I don't see how the Arab world will be swallowing anyone, or how there will be any new panArabist revival, or even religious groundswell. I think Iran has demonstrated the duration of Muslim theocracy in the context of populations as well educated as are Arabs (and Persians). Islamism is just a temporary vehicle, a rallying point for a momentous and inevitable restructuring away from European and American manipulations.

I have no experience in Asia, but I suspect there is ultimately more of Asia to assert itself culturally than there is of the "West". I think it' a little bit unreasonable to associate progressiveness, or democracy, or cosmopolitanism with being "Western". Humans share every conceivable aspiration, desire, and potential. To me, labeling this or that human innovation locatively seems an illusion to me. The Wright Brothers could have been Chinese, and Chairman Mao could have been a honky, under only slightly altered circumstances and timelines. I believe that increasingly in the age of information and travel, people are getting beyond wearing only one set of cultural clothes, and are comfortable in several. I expect these trends are going to reveal, or share causality with the fortunes of nations: Diversity is going to continue bringing prosperity, and xenophobia will always bring instability. Here's to the whole world swallowing us up- The sooner, the better.

 

[BHS]

hypewaters:
Our posts seem to be overlapping. I'm writing in response to your post re: Spain.

I'm not sure where you're going. Your experience in Lebanon seems to have been thus: act of terror, people shrug it off, more terror, more shrugging, and terror becomes a nuisance of everyday life, like traffic jams. I'm not sure that the American people are prepared to live that way. That the rest of the world does accept that sort of nonsense does not make the American attitude wrong. That Beirutis have gotten used to the random spilling of blood does not enoble them.

I object to your characterisation of Americans clamoring to kill "brown people". What a simplistic denegration. I'm sure there are Americans who feel this way, but they are in the minority and to paint the entire pro-war portion of the populace with this brush is inaccurate and serves no useful purpose.

 

[nirakar]

Hypewaders:
Nice post but you forget one very significant point. The enemies of the U.S. could give a rats ass about international law. (have we forgotten 9/11 already?) They do what they want, when they want. Some dogs must be killed, there is no other way. While countries like France, Russia and Germany plus the boobs at the UN sit around and play at international diplomacy, the real villians get away with murder. The U.S. has the right to do what is necessary for it's survival without regard to any one else.

True, but the war in Iraq had nothing to do with America's survival and also had nothing to do with 9/11. Bush decided that regime change in Iraq was more important to him than making sure the 9/11 villians did not get away with murder.

France, Germany and Russia did not see a American controlled Iraq as being in their interest so they did not authorize the war. A UN that takes orders from any one nation is an irrelevant UN. A UN that is ignorred by the world's dominant power is also an irrelevant UN. So, the UN is now irrelevant thanks to Bush.

 

[BHS]

Nirakar:
A thing has to have relevance before it can be made irrelevant. Please point out one instance of the UN ever being relevant to anything in it's entire history.

 

[WildBlueYonder]

Half of Americans have their head in the sand, so they don't recognize Bush's criminality.

actually this is a part of the dumbing-down of America over the last 30 years, (many people don't even care about that), they even elect down prez's like Reagan, Baby Bush & single-issue pressure groups have hurt this too, by laying everything in such stark black & white terms, that there is no middle-ground (review last election & the Swift Boat anti-Kerry campaign)

About 30% of Americans will vote for whomever is against abortion, regardless of any other policy.

that is true, they judge politicians by the the one moral code that sets them apart from most Demos, they feel they must stop this violence against the unborn, which is a deep moral corruption for any society that claims enlightenment

you don't go killing puppies, or clubbing seals do you?

also, someone needs to speak for the voiceless, and since you obviously weren't aborted, why shouldn't it be you?

 

[hypewaders]

BHS:"I'm not sure where you're going. Your experience in Lebanon seems to have been thus: act of terror, people shrug it off, more terror, more shrugging, and terror becomes a nuisance of everyday life, like traffic jams. I'm not sure that the American people are prepared to live that way. That the rest of the world does accept that sort of nonsense does not make the American attitude wrong. That Beirutis have gotten used to the random spilling of blood does not enoble them.

I object to your characterisation of Americans clamoring to kill "brown people". What a simplistic denegration. I'm sure there are Americans who feel this way, but they are in the minority and to paint the entire pro-war portion of the populace with this brush is inaccurate and serves no useful purpose."


I was not comparing nobility, but trying to make the point that terrorism met its match in Lebanon, becoming just another senseless crime for a population that would no longer be moved by it into mass hysteria. Lebanon went through hell, but along the way they lost the stampede mentality in response to terrorism. Believe me, this does not at all mean that the Lebanese lost respect for the value of life.

I think there have been many racist overtones to the national American response to 9-11. This is to be expected in any conflict. Racism is a regressive but pervasive part of the human condition, and in times of conflict it penetrates all of us, even those of us opposed to racism- even those who deny it. Many innocent people are in wrongful detention because of a rash of White American racism in response to 9-11. I know that racism has contributed to incidents when young Americans have fired indescriminately in Iraq on civilian homes and gatherings. You can find many soldiers' stories that are seething with racist hate, if you wish to look for them. I doubt that it is only happenstance that I come upon racism every single day, whenever I make the slightest effort to be aware of it, or not be a part of it.

BTW, if anyone is wondering I'm a privileged white American, not a swarthy disgruntled immigrant. Yet racism does present itself daily in any society I've experienced. So I suspect those who deny it as a factor in the US national response to 9-11 are in denial on that point.

 

[BHS]

hypewaders:
I gather that your conclusion is that Lebanon is better off for having learned to think of terrorism as a garden variety sort of crime, and that America would do better off doing the same. On this, I think we'll have to agree to disagree.

If you go looking for racism in any aspect of human endeavour, you're probably going to find it. I simply refuse to believe that it's a primary cause for this war.

Since we're disclosing our heritage, I should let you know that I'm a priveleged white Canadian. My apologies for not stating so sooner. When I say "we" in my posts I mean it in the sense of all North Americans being kindred. There is far more in common between Americans and Canadians than there is difference.

 

[jayleew]

Lying about matters of war.

The media is largely silent, but what we are talking about is an authentic memo, delivered to Tony Blair. No one has ever come forward and said it wasn't true.
ABC didn't lie, I assume you are talking about Dan Rather. The story about Bush avoiding National Guard service was true.
The Newsweek story is also true about detainee abuses, our own government's reports have confirmed it.

My point is journalists are becoming sensationalists. They will tell the story whether or not they have their facts straight.

What are you talking about? We didn't look out for the meek when we sold Saddam the chemical weapons he used to gas the Kurds, along with the helicopters. Then there's the Nicaraguan death squads that Reagan supported...

We put a bad man out of power, just like in Germany. The world is a safer place without his tyranny.

Really? More upset that Clinton got a BJ than innocent Iraqis and our soldiers died? That's pretty strange.

I don't care what Clinton did in his personal life. I care about him coming on national television and lying. That cuts like a knife to see it mouthed from his lips. Bush has not lied to me, at least to my face. Not that it makes it okay, but if it is not to my face, then it is heresay.
il proven guilty, I feel he is a lier and cannot be trusted.

Dude, he is the crooked government.

You can have your opinion, but I see more bad decisions being made in the courts including the supreme court because of lobbyists. Not all politicians are bad, but enough of them to rock the nation.

 

[hypewaders]

"Please point out one instance of the UN ever being relevant to anything in it's entire history."

Early in my life UN Peacekeepers allowed some normalcy to return in the midst of a civil war. Not long before I and my family evacuated, my neighbor, a UN officer, was killed by terrorists. But that's just one personal account. Just about anyone who has ever been a refugee holds much gratitude to the UN. You can start learning about many UN achievements (and failures too) by browsing the voluminous UN website.

Just as it would be unrealistic to expect medicine, or an organization of physicians to cure all disease, it is ridiculous to lay the ills and corruption of the world at the UN's doorstep. Neither is it reasonable to expect that no corruption of human fault should penetrate the UN. The UN is a work in progress, expressing the common interests of the nations of the World, and providing many sorely-needed solutions/alternatives to suffering and conflict.

 

[jayleew]

Bush is not liable for impeachment for killing the innocent, that's an unfortunate part of war. The thing he did wrong was decieving congress and the world about the justification for the Iraqi war.

If you have proof of this, please share so I can fume at Bush as well. If he lied for sure, I would like to know about it. I don't like lying, especially when it comes from the president to the people. If he lied, he needs to be held accountable. I don't know if impeachment is the right thing, but he can't go away unscathed. Just so you know, I thought the Clinton matter should not have gone as far as impeachment. It was a personal matter and should have been settled out of office.

I guess, to me, impeachment would be for the most heinous crimes that a president could commit, and liberating Iraq is not a heinous crime. If Bush did lie, I would have to question why he did because of the result of the lie. Was he afraid he wouldn't get support if he went in just because Saddam was a bad guy? I don't know.

 

[jayleew]

I guess you'll probably want to have that 'I Love Bush Baby' tattoo removed from your forehead after Bush's impeachment in 2006. Even if you decide to keep it, at least you be welcomed at the next republican convention in 2008.

Novacane

You are optomistic at best, the American people will not allow an impeachment to kick him out. If it happens, at this point, Bush will stay in office.

 

[BHS]

UN peacekeeping is symbolic at best. Peacekeepers don't enter a war zone until a ceasefire has been declared and met. They are not permitted to use force to keep hostiles from either side away from each other, nor are they permitted to detain people suspected of breaking the ceasefire. If a situation degenerates and hostilities resume their first objective is to pull out as quickly as possible. That they provide a modicum of assistance to locals in the form of handing out food and helping to dig latrines does not make them particularly vital or relevant. If you armed the Peace Corps they'd be the same thing, except the Peace Corps hasn't started any child prostitution rings in my recollection. The Blue Berrets have as many shameful incidents on their record as they do reasons to be proud. Probably a lot more. I don't expect the UN to be a universal panacea for the world's woes, but the reflexive tendancy to defend the UN as being the world's greatest hope for the future seems a bit blinkered.

 

[Giskard]

Nirakar: "True, but the war in Iraq had nothing to do with America's survival and also had nothing to do with 9/11. Bush decided that regime change in Iraq was more important to him than making sure the 9/11 villians did not get away with murder

You are so naive.

Nirakar: "France, Germany and Russia did not see a American controlled Iraq as being in their interest so they did not authorize the war. "

That's because they were had their own underhanded dealings with Iraq going on. They were helping to keep Saddam in power, much to the dismay and against the will of the majority of Iraqis.

Nirakar: "A UN that takes orders from any one nation is an irrelevant UN. A UN that is ignorred by the world's dominant power is also an irrelevant UN. So, the UN is now irrelevant thanks to Bush.

Bush did not make the UN irrelevant, they did it to themselves. Perhaps they should all go to France and set up shop there to carry out their "diplomatic ways" and do nothing of any real signifigance.

 

[nirakar]

A thing has to have relevance before it can be made irrelevant. Please point out one instance of the UN ever being relevant to anything in it's entire history.......UN peacekeeping is symbolic at best. Peacekeepers don't enter a war zone until a ceasefire has been declared and met. They are not permitted to use force to keep hostiles from either side away from each other, nor are they permitted to detain people suspected of breaking the ceasefire.

Yes, the UN has been a big disappointment. England, France, USA, and Russia designed the UN to be dependant on them for power and designed the UN to be unable to enter a real war with enough power to stop the war. So to a point the UN was always irrelevant. But........

It is the idealized idea of the UN that is the big achievement of the UN. If the UN had not existed would their have been more wars between smaller nations because their would be no organization with the authority to say "this war is illegitimate"?

If the US ignores the UN's stamps of legitimacy and illegitimacy then do smaller nations also become free from the propaganda pressure of the UN's moral authority?

All of the member states are corrupt because every group of humans includes abuse of power and rationalization. Even husbands and wives abuse their power and rationalize their own selfishness within the family.

The idea of the UN, (an organization that works for humanity as a whole and a higher moral authority than the nation state) is an important idea and is symbolic of the hope that the sufferring that ruthless powerful institutions inflict on humanity could eventually be ended. By trashing the UN we reaffirm the priviledges of power and the futileness of hope for justice and proggress.

Many hoped that the UN would be a flawed first step towards a better world. Many hoped that when the member states were sufficiently mature and civilized that we would reform the UN by replacing it with a stronger more democratic UN. I don't think John Bolton's idea of how to reform the UN includes making the UN stronger or more democratic. So rather than leading the world forward into a future of ever greater peace and cooperation the USA under Bush seems to be leading the world backward into a world of unchecked rule by raw power.

Nirakar: "True, but the war in Iraq had nothing to do with America's survival and also had nothing to do with 9/11. Bush decided that regime change in Iraq was more important to him than making sure the 9/11 villians did not get away with murder

You are so naive.

And here I am thinking that I am so sophisticated and you are so niave. Oh well....

The war in Iraq has nothing to do with thwarting Al Qaeda types in the short term. In the short term the USA was better off having Saddam in power than having him gone if our goal is to thwart Al Qaeda types. Saddam, (though evil), was a competent mercyless enemy of Al Qaeda. If you don't understand this then you are way behind on your understanding of the situation. If we turn Iraq into a very nice place that may eventually diminish the ideology that is creating money and recruits for Al Qaeda.

Even if we make Iraq into a nice modern place some points of contention will remain. How much more riled up would American Christian Republicans be if Hollywood, Wall Street, Madison Avenue, the Pentagon, the CIA and the worlds largest military were all Iraqi institutions based in Baghdad? American Traditionalists hate Hollywood and amoral modernity for corrupting their childrens values for the rest of the world Hollywood and amoral modernity corrupts their childrens values and is an unwanted foreign influence based in America.

The Iraq war is not part of the war on Al Qaeda and was not about WMD or Saddams cruelty to Iraqis or George Bush's love of democracy. Don't be so naive.

 

[Giskard]

Nirakar: "The Iraq war is not part of the war on Al Qaeda "

It most certainly is. Do you think borders determine who the enemy is? This is a religious war. Extremist muslims on one side, everyone else on the other. How can we tolerate a group that claims their god has given instructions to kill all non believers until the whole world falls under their domain. These evil people must be stopped where ever they are. And anyone who tolerates them or fails to help put a stop to them is also the enemy. Or shall we wait until it is too late?

 

[BHS]

Many hoped that the UN would be a flawed first step towards a better world. Many hoped that when the member states were sufficiently mature and civilized that we would reform the UN by replacing it with a stronger more democratic UN. I don't think John Bolton's idea of how to reform the UN includes making the UN stronger or more democratic. So rather than leading the world forward into a future of ever greater peace and cooperation the USA under Bush seems to be leading the world backward into a world of unchecked rule by raw power.

Indeed, the UN is a (very) flawed first step towards a better world. The events of recent years have clearly delineated the flaws in the system. In keeping with the primacy of state sovereignty, the UN was formed as a meeting place of nations as equals, and nothing more. The moral weight of having every other nation in the world telling you that you are wrong was supposed to be enough to solve disputes.

Over time, it has become clear that nations are not equals in the same manner that human beings are. In some nations individual citizens are free to speak their opinions in public, participate in government, and to seek justice if they feel they've been wronged by the actions of their governments. They are free to buy and hold real estate with publicly recognized property rights. The citizens of some other nations would never dream of this.

It is surreal and ridiculous for the world's most contemptible human rights abusers to sit on the Human Rights Committee and hand out judgement against the world's freest nations.

The time has come for the UN as it is today to be replaced by The United Democratic Nations. Price of entry: free elections. (And I mean free elections, not the rigged up thuggery that passes in places like Zimbabwe. Elections that require throwing the opposition leaders in jail while armed government goons patrol the polling places are not free. Elections where there is only one name or party on the ballot are likewise not free.)

 

[spidergoat]

He is using information from our intelligence that says Iran has nukes right now. Do you think He is lying about that information? I don't understand this thinking. President Bush got his "justification" from the intelligence we had at the time and with a sort of blind nodding of the head and saying, the buck stops with the President in some desperate (but feable) attempt to blame BUSH FOR SOMETHING. Let it go, and promote you're own ideas and agenda's.

Just simply say, I think President Bush is too stuborn and incorrect on the issues for our country! Because I for one do.

Now I can no longer trust what he says. NEVER CRY WOLF. You can search sciforums archives and find out that I supported the Iraq invasion based on what he said, even though I'm a liberal, but I feel betrayed that he already decided to go to war months before he claimed that he was exercising all other options, that he fired anyone with dissenting opinions, that the great info was based on someone codenamed curveball that the Germans knew of and thought was insane and unreliable, besides being just one individual. It is incorrect to say that Bush based his decision on what we knew at the time, he picked the intel to fit the policy, which means he selectively avoided any intel that didn't fit with going to war.

Maybe Iran has nuclear weapons and maybe not, but I cannot go along with Bush's plans with regard to wars, not after betraying the trust of the American people.

 

[spidergoat]

If you have proof of this, please share so I can fume at Bush as well. If he lied for sure, I would like to know about it. I don't like lying, especially when it comes from the president to the people. If he lied, he needs to be held accountable. I don't know if impeachment is the right thing, but he can't go away unscathed. Just so you know, I thought the Clinton matter should not have gone as far as impeachment. It was a personal matter and should have been settled out of office.

I guess, to me, impeachment would be for the most heinous crimes that a president could commit, and liberating Iraq is not a heinous crime. If Bush did lie, I would have to question why he did because of the result of the lie. Was he afraid he wouldn't get support if he went in just because Saddam was a bad guy? I don't know.

For God's sake,
Bush and Co. lied about uranium yellow cake, Unmanned arial vehicles, mobile weapons labs, WMD possession and the notion that they knew where they are, that Saddam didn't cooperate with UN resolution 1441, and finally that Iraqis would greet us as liberators.

Any crime commited by or on behalf of the president is heinous enough for impeachment. Note that Clinton was never convicted of any crime.